Have you ever taken a stellar photo of a gorgeous landscape with a sunset, or group photo under a beaming light fixture, then noticed small specks of green somewhere in the shot?
If you shot this on an iPhone, you’ve probably encountered this camera effect at least once.
What does this mean?
Contrary to conspiracy theorist beliefs, these little specks aren’t paranormal orbs running around haunting your camera. Instead, they’re actually little flares being reflected from the strong light source in the frame of where your phone’s pointed at. This is called a lens flare, which happens due to light coming in at an angle and reflecting off your phone camera’s surface.
Many people wonder if this is a defect in the phone’s internal camera feature, but it’s not specific to that. It happens with nearly all camera lenses. It’s just usually more noticeable on your phone.
How do I get rid of these light dots?
Upon scrolling your camera roll, you may come across some quality photos that fall victim to these annoying light dots. You can restore the quality in the image and erase the light dots in question by downloading an app called Snapseed for free. This app, developed by Google, is a professional photo editor that works similar to Photoshop.
Snapseed offers a unique function called ‘Healing’ which allows you to remove light dots from your photos in the easiest way.
- Once you download the app, launch it and load the photo you wish to edit.
- Hit the ‘Tools’ button, located in the middle of the functions on the bottom.
- Select the ‘Healing’ tool (with the bandaid icon).
- Zoom into the photo with your fingers to locate the green light dot(s).
- Then, use your finger to draw over them. Snapseed will remove the dot(s) effortlessly and make the image pure again.
- Tap the checkmark in the bottom right corner to save your newly edited image free of light dots!
How can I prevent this from happening in my photos?
Once you notice the green light dots, there’s no going back to the way things used to be. You’ll no longer be naive to the powers these dots have. When taking a photo on your phone’s camera, try moving the phone around so the light dot will fall perfectly in the visible light source. For example, if you’re taking a photo of a lit up streetlamp at nighttime, try aligning the light dot with the streetlamp light- that’ll make the light dot disappear.
All in all, the green light specks/dots are bound to happen when we use our phone’s camera. However, now you know how to erase those imperfections, make the adjustments, and go back to shooting the way you always wanted to without any unwanted guests.