Remove Unwanted Reflections
in Photoshop

My friend Steve Szydlowski has been photographing exotic cars for the Newport Car Museum and recently complained about the excessive reflections he got on the cars. This happened even though they had a large space with smooth walls, wall-to-floor transitions, a large light diffuser above, and even polarizing filters.

Brush Work Would Be Difficult Against Reflections

I looked at a few photographs and took a quick stab at it. He was quite surprised and pleased with the results. Trying to touch up that area using some healing brush would be too tedious and not sufficiently smooth. Instead, I used a method that utilized a simple color layer with conditional blending using “Blend if” sliders. The process is reasonably simple and generally does not require a precise selection.

Add A New Blank Layer

The areas suffering from reflections need to be hidden by the contents of a new layer. Using one of the lasso tools select the areas with some glare on this layer. Include their surroundings as they will automatically be removed by the “Blend if” sliders. Note that the selection extends from one fender to the other as there are various areas of reflection.

To make the next step a little easier to visualize fill this selection with a brightly contrasting color. In this example, I chose bright red as the default color for the foreground. Now, if you hold the Alt key and press the Backspace, the selected area will be filled with the foreground color, red.

Reach In For Blend If Sliders

Now is the time to specify when to apply the layer above to the one below. Double-click the layer icon to see the blending options on the Layer Style panel. You should see the Blend If sliders with one representing the conditions applied to the layer above and the other, to the one below. In this case, the blending is conditional on the layer below. Start moving the triangular slider from the left edge towards the right. Parts of the top layer will start disappearing as the conditions below tell it not to blend with the layer below. Remember that the changes you make here are adjustable later if necessary.

Stop moving the black end slider to the right when you see some reflections showing through and pull it back a little. To make this selection nicely feathered, hold the Alt key and drag the right part of the large triangle. As you move that part to the right, more areas will appear. Visually adjust the sliders where the red blends smoothly with the layer below.

Apply Color Taken From The Car

Now is the time to replace the red with the car color. Using the foreground color selector, like above, select a suitable shade from the car paint. I picked the color and left the color selector on the screen for the screen capture. After the color is picked click OK to close the color selector, hold the Alt key pressed, and press the Backspace to fill the selection with the new color. It is almost done. The new layer will magically cover the reflections on the car. However, this may look too artificial, and bringing some sense of reflection will make the image look more realistic. This is easily done by slightly reducing the layer opacity until it feels right.

Here is the before-after comparison with the slider once more.

This technique can be used for a variety of fixes. It does not require precise selections and the feathered transitioning is inherent in the Blend If tool. Remember that the blending condition does not always have to be the “Gray” value but can be any of the color channels.

Enjoy!