Photo Help PLEASE!!
 

Took this on Thanksgiving of all of our family that came & celebrated with us! Was a great day, and I love the picture......
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y80..._7021-help.jpg

... EXCEPT for the huge glare on the top left. If it were a sun flare it wouldn't bother me, but a huge white streak across my picture just bugs me. I spent a few minutes working on trying to fix it and got immediately frustrated. So I thought I'd ask what you all thought would be the best/easiest way to fix it. HELP PLEASE!!!

Oh no! I don't think it's that bad, and it seems like a sun ray to me, but I totally get why it bothers you. I wish I had some advice for you, but all I can think is sorry! :(

Yeah, it is a sun ray. A prettier, rounder sun flare would've been much nicer - lol! :)

Great picture! Congrats on getting one where everyone has a nice expression - that would never happen in my family!

I'd try duplicating the photo, then turning the exposure down on the top layer and masking out everything except for the streak. Or maybe use the burn tool. And play with blending modes. I don't know if you can get rid of it completely, but I bet you can make it a lot less pronounced.

Or if that doesn't work, maybe just add a sunburst element on top of the photo ;)

Does converting it to B&W help at all? That is such a bummer when that happens :( I think it could be edited, but it would definitely take some time.

Just tried converting to B&W and I think it made it more obvious, ya know the contrast of it. :(

This isn't much better, but took Kate's advice and got this. It's a *little* tiny bit better:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y80...7021-help2.jpg

i have no ideas but i'm impressed that everyone's looking at the camera! that'd be a miracle with my family.

Yes, is was a miracle, that's why I was so bummed about the glare!! :)

Also, got this gem, though a little out of focus (which might not be a bad thing!!):
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y80.../DSC_7023-.jpg

Fabulous picture. Have you tried cloning?! You could get a really small brush and try to fix it.

Was the picture taking blonde with long hair? That's what it looks like to me. I get this often when I forget to pull my hair back while taking pictures.

Nope, was on a timer. :)

I know you're frustrated, but I just want to say that you have an amazing beautiful family! I hope you can fix it so it works better for you.

Thanks!! :)

Wow. That is a great photo! No suggestions but I love the photo and love the porch you all are sitting on.

Yes, I would be a little dismayed by the sunstreak, but getting that large of a group all looking at the camera, good smiles, no closed eyes, or wacky kids is a miracle. I have no advice and it sounds like you're trying hard to fix it, so good luck! Even if you can't fix it, it's still an awesome photo!

Do you have CS with content aware move tool? I bet you could fix much of it using that. It won't be perfect but I bet you could get rid of much of that glare using that tool.

I'd try cloning starting with the top of the shoulder of the guy in the red striped shirt to take out the glare up to the left upper corner. Then I would grab the people with the washed out look with a magic wand and bump up the contrast. Or maybe do some small cloning of the clothing. But I think taking out that big glare in the upper left would make a big difference.

There are places you can send it to be edited for you. If you get too frustrated and REALLY want that streak gone. That looks like a big project even for a super photoshopper! Darn it!

I DL the photo you uploaded here and played with it a bit... yeah, it's frustrating and really difficult to fix. I think you could probably labor through it with a clone tool but I say get some bokeh effect overlays and add some pretty round sun rays over that upper left corner. Pretend like it's a happy accident. ;)

Gorgeous photo of everyone! I agree with everyone else... quite an achievement to have everyone looking at the camera smiling with their eyes open! :)

Yeah, I was trying to avoid cloning, mostly because I really suck at it and I knew it would be extremely tedious and take forever. I thought about sending it somewhere, but I don't think I really wanna spend lots of $$ to fix it. I love the photo, but I'm not going to print it on like a huge canvas or anything. It may eventually get printed and put up in the hall at the lake (where it was taken), but it's such a rustic place that I don't think the imperfection of the photo would really matter.

Thanks so much, everyone for your advice!

It's gorgeous! I think I would probably duplicate and mask off everything but the flared area and try to adjust it. I know that is a rough job though!!

I could get rid of the big glare pretty well using the patch tool in vertical increments following the lines of the architecture. It's not perfect, but combined with a little content aware fill and adding in a softer, prettier flare may help the obvious washout not be so bad...

I also burned the affected faces (midtones at 50% with a soft brush), and more careful burning may get rid of more, but I felt like it made things muddy.

Here's what I got using this sunflare (lowered saturation, increased lightness, and set to soft light with lowered opacity)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8479/8...43051a61_o.jpg

Not even close to perfect, but enough to give you an idea, and if you are more familiar with adding sun flare yours may look better.

You did a great job Megan!

We should play a 'pass the pixels' type of thing with this pic.... pass it around and see how it looks at the end with everyone working just a couple mins on it, LOL!

This was going to be my suggestion...it'll be a bit tedious but I think it might help a lot.

This looks GREAT!! (Only wish you had done it to the full res image!! lol!)