I have tried removing the spot with image editing software (GIMP) and this works to an extent limited by my lack of skill, but takes a long time, maybe 5-10 minutes per picture. I probably need to take the thing in to a proper camera shop, but meanwhile a work-around is to hold the camera upside-down when taking pictures. It takes a matter of seconds to invert a photo, and although you can still see the dark spot (now in the lower left-hand part of the picture) it is much less offensive.
I have a well used five year old Canon DSLR, which over the last year has steadily given birth to a sizeable family of these spots and blemishes. In my case it’s a dirty sensor, which will cost me £40 to have cleaned by a pro, when I can be bothered to make the journey to the shop and leave it for a week. At the risk of boring you senseless, you could pick up a used ‘as new’ version of Photoshop Elements ‘6’ from Amazon, for about £13 plus p&p. You don’t need anything newer than ‘6’. The ‘clone’ and ‘smudge’ tools are excellent at dealing with this sort of problem and many other issues too (took me about ten minutes to make all the tall cranes and scaffolding disappear around the ‘Sagrada Familia’ in Barcelona a few years ago) – and they are very quick and simple to use.
ReplyDeleteMere seconds with a tiny bit of practice. On top of which you get a hugely comprehensive piece of software for your euros, even if you have no desire to spend time playing around with the rest of it. That ‘blob’ on your top image would take less than ten seconds to eliminate with the clone tool alone.
If you can’t get the camera cleaned or fixed easily, it will save you all the trouble of standing on your head to take sky shots. For what it’s worth.