eliminate lens flare

i just bought a tokina 11-16 , shooting into the sun using a small aperture i got some really nice sun rays just after sun up , problem is even with the lens hood i got some distracting sun spots

is there any technique to minimise this or better still eliminate , is there a different lens hood then the standard one that may help

If you shoot into the sun, the hood is not going to help! I have the same lens and noticed that the amount of flare depends on where the sun is in your frame. You can actually see it int he viewfinder. Move the camera around a bit and you will notice that the flare changes. Pick a spot where it is the weakest. This is one of the pictures where I minimised the flare simply by recomposing the image.

You could use a two frame approach. Start by using a tripod because you need to get two images that are identical. Shoot the scene you want with the flares. Shoot another scene by using your thumb or something similar to block out as much flare as you can. Yes your thumb will be in the frame. In post layer the two images together and paint in the spots of the image without the flares over the image with them. Works but it's not like shooting perpendicular to the sun and having a less cloudy image. Which you will have regardless. Works best with images having sun spots.

If the light source causing the flare is not in the image, use a hand, hat, piece of cardboard, etc to block the source.

If the light source causing the flare is in the image, there may still be a few things to try.

• Recompose the shot.
• Remove any filters you do not need for the shot.
• Use a filter or piece of glass in front of the lens to reflect the flare away from the lens.

this is the image , i wanted to reduce these spots , also any technique to remove them in photoshop would be helpful

egosbar said:

this is the image , i wanted to reduce these spots , also any technique to remove them in photoshop would be helpful

Click to expand...

Not bad at all as is. I'm not sure what you would want to reduce.

Small spots can be touched up using the spot healing brush or clone stamp in PS.

I don't see any spots. If you're talking about the bottom of the pic with those orange "spots" they're hardly noticeable.

sorry it was supposed to be a gif , showing unprocessed and processed

ive changed the image to the original with the sun spots

OK, so looks like you fixed it already, which leaves me confused. What is it we are now attempting to do??