Unremarkable Photo Until ...

This photo, published in today’s The Westerville News, is a seemingly unremarkable photo of a storefront covered in strips of kraft paper and a sign noting the jewelry store is moving. It’s notable only because it announces that the jeweler is moving from its current location one block away. No significant news value other than the obvious.

But look closely along the bottom of the window. Especially note the strips fourth from the left and fourth from the right. Those circular objects appear to be hubcaps for a Mini-Cooper. They are reflected in Miini-Cooper hubcaps reflected in the storefront window. You don’t see the rest of the car's reflection, reflections of other vehicles parked in the street, and city hall‘s reflection.

The distracting reflections are gone thanks to Adobe Camera RAW’s newest ability to remove them using computing power and an algorithm that falls directly into Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

This is magic.

Under perfect lighting conditions, a polarizing filter might have been possible to remove some but not all the reflections. A polarizer is most effective in sunlight on a single reflecting surface, but it wouldn’t be very helpful on this cloudy day.

Here is the original before being converted in about 20 seconds to the clear view at the top.

It wasn’t the first time I used the reflection tool. The first was an experiment to see how effective it was. The two photos below demonstrate the tool’s capabilities, and they show greater magic.

I’m not going to get into the ethical discussion of using this tool. That’s more than the intent here.

My Final Photo News is a reader-supported publication. By becoming a free or paid subscriber, you receive new posts and play a crucial role in supporting my photography and commentary. Please subscribe to The Westerville News and PhotoCamp Daily.

My Final Photo News recommends its friends, Civic Capacity, Marysville Matters, and Into the Morning by Krista Steele.