Fix shadowing, glare, and reflections in bad photos

I’ve definitely ruined my fair share of photos by taking them at the most inopportune times. I’ve also tried to fix it by using strange angles that made it worse.

The two most common issues I’ve encountered with using my Samsung camera are shadowing and glare, as well as internal reflections.

My home is ancient. It also doesn’t have the best lighting. So, depending on the time of day I snap a picture, I can create some horrendous-looking shots that I have to trash or keep for my personal collection.

However, there are some shots I wish to share with others. As a result, I’ve looked into some easy fixes.

I’ve ignored AI photo-editing camera tools for too long. However, this tool in particular surprised me with its effectiveness in fixing my photos.

In addition to using this tool, I’ve also practiced photo-taking techniques that enable better shots.

My Samsung Galaxy S25+ has become my go-to device for taking photos, thanks to the availability of these tools and a solid camera.

What causes shadowing and glare?

Knowing how it happens can improve your planning

Shadowing comes from uneven lighting. Lighting can become uneven if it is blocked by objects surrounding the subject and the light, or if the subject itself blocks the illumination.

The uneven light creates shadowing around the subject, resulting in dark areas in the photo.

I prefer to use natural light from the windows to create clear images. However, most of my photos show my shadow when I snap them from a top-down view.

This is because, from my position, I partially block the light coming from the photo.

Sometimes, to fix this, I duck down, away from the window. Doing so means I can’t view the object in the viewfinder, and I might accidentally alter the angle.

I try to remove the shadowing by taking images across many different windows. If the weather permits, I’ll opt for outdoor photo shoots to have better control over my angles and positioning.

Glaring, on the other hand, is more challenging to remove naturally. Glaring (also referred to as lens flare) is caused by direct sunlight or strong artificial lights hitting the lens at specific angles.

Other causes include phone cases or covers (taking images with the case or cover equipped), a dirty or smudged lens, and internal reflections (light bouncing off the internal elements of the lens and the camera sensor).

I tend to encounter glaring issues when I snap photos of the subject near my glass door panel or when taking images of another phone screen.

Tweak your Samsung camera’s exposure

You can manually change the exposure or use auto HDR

Besides being mindful of where you take images. You can make some slight adjustments to correct the shadowing and glare effects in certain photos.

When you open the camera app, you can adjust the brightness before taking the shot. Changing the brightness will adjust the exposure.

If you reduce the exposure, you can decrease the amount of light entering the image. This allows you to reduce the contrast between unevenly lit areas and the subject you’re focusing on.

I find fine-tuning the exposure to be quite tricky, and I sometimes get inconsistent results.

Sometimes, my images appear too dark and even grainy if I try to hide the shadowing. However, as I’m not an experienced photographer, I don’t expect to set up each shot perfectly.

One technique that did help me was enabling auto HDR. HDR (High Dynamic Range) is a mode that uses multiple exposures to capture a broader range of light and dark details.

To enable it, you must install the Camera Assistant app from Good Lock.

However, if you already know what you’re doing with exposure, turning off auto HDR might yield better results. As someone who is still learning, I found the feature to be helpful while composing my shots.

Fixing your gallery photos with Object Eraser

Use it to remove those unwanted shadows and reflections

Given that I have saved over 10,000 photos in the past year or two, I have plenty of poor shots. Luckily, there’s a way to fix them using Samsung’s Object Eraser feature.

Object Eraser is an AI photo editing function. It uses AI to correct a selected area in a photo, typically to remove an object, but you can also use it to remove shadowing and reflections in a picture.

When you tap a photo in your Samsung Gallery, select the Pencil icon and choose Object eraser.

The AI will perform a calculation to correct the photo, or you can use the lasso tool to draw around the image.

I always choose to undo the autocorrection and select the dedicated Erase shadows and Erase reflections buttons instead.

I like using this feature to fix photos that I’ve already taken from my gallery. For example, I take a lot of dog pictures, but neither of my dogs likes to stand still for them.

It’s a rare opportunity to get a perfectly still photo (especially with my hyperactive two-year-old Golden Retriever). I usually don’t have a choice of when and where to take them.

So re-taking those images isn’t plausible.

The AI photo-editing tools come in clutch when I want to remove the shadows and reflections that were accidentally captured in those images.

The tool isn’t perfect, as it can sometimes detect other areas with shadows and reflections that are far from the subject (which isn’t always helpful if I am already cropping it).

You also have to apply this to one image at a time. This takes a long time since I have a habit of snapping at least 20 photos, if not more, a day.

Your gallery can also become disorganized. I always opt to save a copy instead of overwriting the original.

While doing this, you may prefer to temporarily disable backups until you determine which images you wish to keep (or your storage space might seriously become in trouble).

Use the Camera Assistant app to snap better photos

While I’m thrilled that I can salvage my treasured photos, it still takes me a lot of time to correct and perfect these images to my liking. Thankfully, Samsung’s Camera Assistant app makes taking shots a little easier.

You can tweak the settings to help, such as reducing shutter lag to prevent capture delay or using the adaptive pixel option to reduce the noise in your pictures.

The app isn’t available by default, so you will need to enable it through Good Lock or download it from the Galaxy Store.