Eliminate Shine
With Paint Shop Pro


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This eliminate shine technique demonstrates how to remove one of the most troubling problems people face with their digital photos ...glare off of sweaty skin, light reflections on a nose, hotspots etc.

And you know what -  it's really not that hard to eliminate shine with Paint Shop Pro Photo X2. The technique involves the Clone Tool, perhaps the Object Remover, some layers, maybe a selection and a lot of a care.

The shiny surfaces really are areas of blown out highlights with no detail whatsoever at the worst and some detail in others areas.

If an area is completely devoid of any texture (just brilliant white) then another approach may be necessary but most shiny areas can be repaired quickly.

An Example

eliminate shine

This picture is typical of the problem most digital camera users seem to face.  

There are highlights on the bridge of the nose, on the side of the nose, at the end of the nose as well as on the forehead.

This Paintshop eliminate shine technique will deal with the easy areas (nose and bridge of the nose) with the Clone Tool and the more difficult are above her right eyebrow will be fixed with the Object Remover

The Clone Tool and Paintshop Eliminate Shine



Make a copy of the original image by right clicking on the background layer, selecting Duplicate and then create a new Raster Layer (give the new layer a name so you can keep track of your work - say Nose Tip).

eliminate shine layer 1
Activate the Nose Tip layer and select the Clone Tool.   In this case both the Aligned and Use All Layers Boxes are checked.  Use All Layers lets you go from the image to a blank layer.  Being on a blank layer means you can throw away your mistakes or change opacity if you wish.

If you're using a Wacom tablet set the pen pressure to Opacity in the Brush Variance Palette.

If you are using a mouse then lower the Opacity of the Clone Brush.

This is where the power of a Wacom tablet really shows up - you can zoom in really close and smoooooothly clone away the shine without those herky-jerky mouse movements

Zoom in really close and select a Source Point (the non-shiny pixels) by right clicking on the image and then very carefully start cloning away the shine.  Keep your brush small and take your time (change the brush size by pressing the ALT key, left clicking and drag left to make the brush smaller).

Set the Source Point as close as you can to the shiny area to maintain similar brightness and color - you may have to set a lot of different Source Points

Here's the nose before and after cloning..

eliminate shine nosetip eliminate shine nose fixed
Original Shine Eliminated

The exact same procedure can be followed to eliminate the shine from the bridge of her nose as well.

Create a new layer and name it Bridge then gently clone away the shine from the surrounding pixels.  Take care to blend in the pixels to prevent you work from looking amateurish - you know what I mean.  Match and blend the areas.

Here is the bridge before and after ...

eliminate shine nose bridge pre eliminate shine nose bridge post
Original Shine Eliminated

This is the tried and true way of eliminating those annoying shiny spots butPaintshop has another fabulous way to eliminate shine ...



The Paintshop Object Remover
to Eliminate Shine


In some cases you will run into a situation like the area above her right eyebrow, that is, a large area of burned out pixels that needs fixing.

You can approach it the same way as the other shiny areas with a new layer and carefully cloning in some detal- or - you can try someting different.

The something different is to create a patch to cover the offending area. Luckliy you have Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 so you also have the Object Remover which is really amazing.

The Object Remover tool lives with the Clone Tool in the tool bar and when you select it you will see these controls at the top of the screen.

eliminate shine object remover
Object Remover Controls

The function of the Object Remover is fully explained in the Learning Center and here is a brief overview:
  1. The Lasso selects the area you want to replace.
  2. The Square selects the area you want to use to fill the area selected by the Lasso.
  3. The Opacity and Feather are self explanatory.
  4. The Check Mark applies the 'object removing'.
  5. The Back Arrow undoes what you just did.
To use the Object Remover simply make a loose selection around the offending area (shiny skin in this case).  When you are done click the Square Box and it will appear on your screen.  It is huge so you will need to downsize it to about the same size as your selection.

eliminate shine object remover
Object Remover in Action

Move the small box to an area that is similar in hue and brightness to what you want the shiny area to be and then click the checkmark.

If you are not pleased with the results simply undo the last command, move the box to a different area and try again.  You can adjust the Opacity and Feathering to help.

A User Suggestion

An experienced Paint Shop Pro user made the following suggestion about using the Object Remover ...

"Just a hint about the Object Remover. Use the tool on a separate raster layer (check use all layers) and set tool opacity to between 20 and 30 (click the apply tool as many times as needed). "


Use the Clone Tool to do any final tuneups to the area.  In addition I added a small amount of Noise (Gaussian and monochrome) before I de-selected.

shiny forehead no shine
Shiny Forehead Shine Eliminated With
Object Remover


Once you get the hang of using the Object Remover you will fly through it with great results.

So there you go - two simple methods for eliminate shine with Paintshop from a nose or forehead or pretty much anything with that great product from Corel - Paint Shop Pro Photo X2!



Eliminating Shine
Comments, Questions, Suggestion

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On Page Links

An Example

The Clone Tool

Object Remover

User Suggestion


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