Fingerprint on lens

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I discovered white marks on most of my photos which was caused by a fingermark on my lens. Can anyone suggest a way of removing the white mark please?
 
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if its on the front lens
just clean it with a microfiber tissue

if its on the other end ( where you attach it) go see a specialist so he can clean it up

hope it helps
 
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You misunderstood me! The white mark is on the photo not the lens. I have cleaned the lens now. I have attached an example.

100_1161.jpg
 
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Of course Photoshop 5 will fix that in a jiffy with its content aware cloning tool. You can also fix it with Aperture and Lightroom 3. I don't know of any free software that will do the job though. Do you need that particular photo anyway ? It looks pretty noisy and isn't a wall hanger or anything. Or is it something you wanted someone to see ? How many other photos have been affected by your fingers ?

Tip for the next outing: Always carry an Lens Pen with you and check your lenses before mounting them !

If you don't have the available software, I can take care of them for you at some point if you'd like. If you have the RAW files it would be better than the .jpgs


Doug
 

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I'm not a photographer by any means, but out of curiosity, will the free Picasa for the Mac remove that? Or does one need a more sophisticated program as Doug has suggested?

Regards.
 
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Picasa is, to the best of my knowledge (haven't used it in a while) an image organizer (I don't recall any retouching tools, but if there are any I'd imagine they're primitive).

To do a GOOD job of removing a smudge that large, yeah you need Photoshop (or at least Photoshop Elements).
 
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Of course Photoshop 5 will fix that in a jiffy with its content aware cloning tool. You can also fix it with Aperture and Lightroom 3. I don't know of any free software that will do the job though. Do you need that particular photo anyway ? It looks pretty noisy and isn't a wall hanger or anything. Or is it something you wanted someone to see ? How many other photos have been affected by your fingers ?

Tip for the next outing: Always carry an Lens Pen with you and check your lenses before mounting them !

If you don't have the available software, I can take care of them for you at some point if you'd like. If you have the RAW files it would be better than the .jpgs


Doug

Doesn't always work depending on the scene.
 
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Of course Photoshop 5 will fix that in a jiffy with its content aware cloning tool. You can also fix it with Aperture and Lightroom 3. I don't know of any free software that will do the job though. Do you need that particular photo anyway ? It looks pretty noisy and isn't a wall hanger or anything. Or is it something you wanted someone to see ? How many other photos have been affected by your fingers ?

Tip for the next outing: Always carry an Lens Pen with you and check your lenses before mounting them !

If you don't have the available software, I can take care of them for you at some point if you'd like. If you have the RAW files it would be better than the .jpgs


Hi Doug
I have CS2 Photoshop for PC so could load it into Parallels which has a dust and scratch filter but was hoping Gimp for Mac might do it. Does anyone know if it does. Failing that I would take up your offer of doing it for me.
 
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In most camera stores you'll find an alcohol-based lens cleaning fluid that is well worth having. It will help you to lift off fingerprints and other smudges without leaving streaks on your lens or filter. Keep in mind that you don't need too much of this fluid at a time - usually just a drop or two wiped in a gentle circular motion with a cleaning tissue will remove most marks on a lens or filter.
 
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Doesn't always work depending on the scene.

Of course. But the trying part is what builds experience and will help the OP realize whether or not trying to fix such a thing is worth the effort, and will also go a long way in making sure he or she is more careful in the future.

Doug
 
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Thanks Doug I have corrected one using the cloning tool in Gimp but it takes hours to change large areas such as the sea. Surely there is a quicker way for large areas?*Tony
 
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I'm really curious to see the other photos Tony. Reason being is that if they're anything like the one you've displayed already, in terms of composition and content, then I wouldn't really spend too much time worrying about what might already be too late to fix.

Are these photos needed for sentimental reasons ? Can you give us a bit more background info on the "ruined" images ? What I'm really trying to get to here is this:

I have thousands of images in my Lightroom catalog, and I absolutely know without a doubt, that tons of them are pure crapola. (I'm not calling your photo crap) Maybe someone else might disagree and find something interesting about them which I just don't see, but I know that it wouldn't matter to me unless they were willing to pay me for their interest.

Of course, some photos are simply only vacation pics or silly friend or family pics, and in those cases image quality isn't all that much of a concern. But as with such photos, I also know that I've usually taken a redundant amount of the same types, so I don't hesitate to throw away the worst of them.

What I'm suggesting to you is that you might want to consider what is really worth keeping and what is ok to simply get rid of.

I'm looking at your example photo and right off the bat several things concern me about you wanting to fix it. Do you have the RAW image of this and the other photos ? Or is everything jpg? It's already filled with chromatic and luminescent noise, and has some fairly heavy amount of compression artifacts. Editing a photo with such qualities will only serve to make it look worse the more and more you work with it. If it were a RAW file, then no problem...

Anyway, I took a few minutes and cleaned it up a bit but didn't do anything with layers, so a lot of the boats are gone. This is only an example of course, but if you took your time with CS3, I think you'd find that anything is possible. I just wasn't willing to spend very long on this since I don't know what you need or want it for.

Also, I'm not sure of whether the hill tops in the background are smudged with your prints, or if those are low hanging clouds or fog ? Because it's so hard to differentiate those things, it is very distracting. I personally wouldn't even save the image, but would instead try and retake it if possible.
933796704_8tZ3T-L.jpg


Doug
 
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Most are not well composed and the one I sent is poor but they are only holiday snaps but some are much better and I am sending one with better composition.



I'm really curious to see the other photos Tony. Reason being is that if they're anything like the one you've displayed already, in terms of composition and content, then I wouldn't really spend too much time worrying about what might already be too late to fix.

Are these photos needed for sentimental reasons ? Can you give us a bit more background info on the "ruined" images ? What I'm really trying to get to here is this:

I have thousands of images in my Lightroom catalog, and I absolutely know without a doubt, that tons of them are pure crapola. (I'm not calling your photo crap) Maybe someone else might disagree and find something interesting about them which I just don't see, but I know that it wouldn't matter to me unless they were willing to pay me for their interest.

Of course, some photos are simply only vacation pics or silly friend or family pics, and in those cases image quality isn't all that much of a concern. But as with such photos, I also know that I've usually taken a redundant amount of the same types, so I don't hesitate to throw away the worst of them.

What I'm suggesting to you is that you might want to consider what is really worth keeping and what is ok to simply get rid of.

I'm looking at your example photo and right off the bat several things concern me about you wanting to fix it. Do you have the RAW image of this and the other photos ? Or is everything jpg? It's already filled with chromatic and luminescent noise, and has some fairly heavy amount of compression artifacts. Editing a photo with such qualities will only serve to make it look worse the more and more you work with it. If it were a RAW file, then no problem...

Anyway, I took a few minutes and cleaned it up a bit but didn't do anything with layers, so a lot of the boats are gone. This is only an example of course, but if you took your time with CS3, I think you'd find that anything is possible. I just wasn't willing to spend very long on this since I don't know what you need or want it for.

Also, I'm not sure of whether the hill tops in the background are smudged with your prints, or if those are low hanging clouds or fog ? Because it's so hard to differentiate those things, it is very distracting. I personally wouldn't even save the image, but would instead try and retake it if possible.
933796704_8tZ3T-L.jpg


Doug

Rocks.jpg
 
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I honestly don't see much (if any) of a problem with that last one ? Maybe a bit washed out looking on the left side top of the water near the rocks, but not worth doing much with in terms of trying to fix it IMO. As far as composition goes, it's not telling much of a story (not that every photo absolutely has to.. some can just be meant to look pretty) because it's cropped so heavily, so I'm not really sure of where you want to go with that photo processing wise ?

Doug
 
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For future reference, don't rely on Photoshop to correct mistakes in an image. Learn how to use your camera, clean it regularly, and you'll get perfect pictures, a good majority of the time. If you clean the lens with a microfiber cloth, that should remove those white marks, though they just look like blur marks to me. Now since you have to fix these images, most of the Photoshop versions' healing tool makes things worse. I know that CS5 has fixed and produces some really good results. If you don't have it, I would download a trial and do it through that.
 

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