Remove Sun Glare From a Photo

Shooting toward the sun leaves flare streaks, rainbow lens-flare rings, and blown-out hotspots across your shot. Magic Eraser's AI brushes them away and reconstructs a clean sky or background in their place.

Last updated June 20, 2026

When the sun ruins an outdoor shot

Point a lens anywhere near the sun and the light fights back: hazy flare washing over a face, polygon-shaped lens-flare ghosts marching across the frame, and a searing hotspot that drowns out detail. These artifacts are different from a glossy reflection — they're scattered light baked into the exposure, so you can't just dim them down. Magic Eraser handles them by removing the affected pixels and inpainting a believable replacement. Instead of trying to recover blown-out detail that the sensor never captured, the AI studies the surrounding sky, foliage, or skin tones and synthesizes a plausible patch that blends in. It's a reconstruction, not hidden detail brought back — but for sky, gradients, and even backgrounds, the result usually looks like the flare was never there. It runs free in your browser or on the iOS and Android apps, with no watermark on the export.

Erase sun flare in three steps

1. 1

   Upload the sun-flared photo

   Open Magic Eraser on the web or in the app and drop in your outdoor shot — the one with flare streaks, ghost rings, or a bright washed-out hotspot.

2. 2

   Brush over the flare and hotspots

   Paint across each flare ring, the hazy streak, and the blown-out patch. Work spot by spot so the AI has clean surrounding sky or scenery to sample from for the rebuild.

3. 3

   Let the AI rebuild and export

   Magic Eraser inpaints continuous sky, clouds, or background where the glare was. Touch up any leftover ghost, then download the clean image at full resolution.

Best for

• Sweeping sun-flare streaks and haze across landscape and beach photos
• Polygon-shaped lens-flare ghosts that march across the frame toward the sun
• Bright hotspots washing out faces in backlit portraits
• Rainbow flare arcs over skies, water, and open horizons
• Golden-hour shots where flare spills over an otherwise perfect scene

Tips for cleaner results

Tackle each flare element separately — one pass for the ghost rings, another for the haze, another for the hotspot — so the AI can sample the right neighbors for each. Glare sitting over smooth, predictable areas like open sky or water reconstructs almost invisibly; flare crossing detailed edges (tree lines, faces, architecture) is harder, so brush tightly around those and review the seams. If a hotspot has eaten fine detail that was never recorded, accept that the fill is a clean plausible substitute rather than the original texture. For stubborn spots, run a second light pass instead of one heavy brush stroke.

Frequently asked questions

Can it remove lens flare rings and not just glare haze?

Yes. Brush over the polygon-shaped ghost rings the same way you would the haze. The AI removes each ring and inpaints the sky or background behind it, so the chain of flare ghosts disappears from the frame.

Will it bring back detail lost in a blown-out sun hotspot?

Not literally — a hotspot means the sensor recorded no detail there. Magic Eraser synthesizes a plausible replacement from the surrounding area, so it looks natural even though it's a reconstruction rather than recovered original pixels.

Is Magic Eraser free to start?

Yes. There's a free tier on web, iOS, and Android, and exports come without a watermark, so you can clean up sun flare and download the result at no cost.