what is this and how to get rid of it

[Psneddon]

I did some family photos the other weekend, 4 families, 1 grandma, two dogs. 3 families were great the last family was not so much, this best of the 5 photos i have of them.

What is around grandma's feet, my guess lens flair but it seam like a weird shape, and how do i get rid of it.

I have Lightroom 3 and CS5

[William]

Looks like lens flare to me as well , I'd use the Graduated tool in Lightroom 3 , Lower the exposure and give it some contrast just in that area effected , Just a thought - Bill

[arthurking83]

you were shooting into the sun, so the best way to minimise this is to use the lens hood(which you probably did) and then lower the angle of the lens.. only a very slight amount should do it so that the upper edge of the lens hood is providing shade for the lens. it only needed a degree or two down.. not too much so as to cause perspective distortion.

As William said, some darkening (and contrast if required) would help.

_MG_2702.jpg
What I did was to use the brush selection tool instead over the affected flare area and it seems as though it'd clean up nicely. I only reduced brightness by -40% here and there in brushing motion.
At first I added an inverse circular selection to darken both the upper section above their heads as well, but in doing that the very lower corners became too dark and the difference in brightness levels between the darker lowest edges and the brighter flare was still noticeable. So the brush selection worked best over the flare area.
With your larger image size you should easily do a better job of it than I did.

[Psneddon]

It worked, well i found the magic brush tool that allowed me to get the shape right, Thank you.

[Psneddon]

Thankyou, the revised image is much better, i painted the glare and added a graduated filter over the top.

[Allann]

Looks good, you've done well

[dbax]

Looks good, you've done well

^1+ good job