What kind of a spot is this?

Could somebody please help me identify what kind of spot I'm dealing with over here? I've tried cleaning my sensor, a couple different ways (Canon 60D). Could this be a lens issue? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you!

For anyone looking, it's legit. If you look closely, there's a large spot over the right shoulder blade. It wasn't obvious to me. That said, there's a posterizing effect over the shirt/jacket. The "spot" may be related.

Okay, I've looked at it in Lightroom. (There are ways.)

First, your highlights are blown. The background is overexposed. With a jpeg, it's difficult to judge the extent, but it's a bit much. As a jpeg it's easy to correct.

Second, I'll make a guess this is a textured fabric, "fuzzy" as it were. There's a large spot on the right shoulder blade, another in the middle down to the left of the first, and there's a third below the left shoulder blade. My guess is that the nap of the fabric was uneven. Assuming this is a product shot, this is one where you'll need to "brush" the fabric in the same direction before shooting. Doing it with your hands will suffice. This is one where it would be especially helpful to either shoot tethered or to view the image on a computer during the shoot to see if there's anything odd.

That said, a quick "spot removal" in Lightroom cleans it. As you don't have anything to indicate editing is permitted I cannot post the result. No matter, cleanup is easy.

It's just my thought. Hope this helps!

What I see looks like some form of lens flare, but I an not familiar with this type of shooting.

ejenner wrote in post #17991196
What I see looks like some form of lens flare, but I an not familiar with this type of shooting.

This is my suspiscion, too. It looks like very light lens flare to me. What was the lighting setup/positioning used? It seems as if there was a bright light, just above and out of frame. Or, possibly, low left of frame.

I disagree with mathogre. The highlights being blown is irrelevant. I don't do a lot of 'product' work, but blowing highlights is a common technique for eliminating shadows. Once a highlight is blown (overexposed to the point of no detail), it does not matter by how much. In this photo, the highlights are background, with no detail, and totally NOT part of the shot.

On my monitor, the 'spot' on the right shoulder blade is obvious. It has a 'blob' component about half the size of the 'spot' covering the lower 1/3 - 1/4 of the 'spot', and bleeding downward. There is also a smaller, nearly round spot just down and to the left of the big spot. This smacks of lens flare, and that is my guess.

Which could lead back to the blown highlights. If the BG is being intentionally blown, and way too much light is being used, flare may be the result. Or it could just be a cheap filter. Or lack of an adequate hood. If it is flare, correcting the cause would be preferred over repairing the shot.

EDIT: Snydremark was posting at the same time I was typing the above. I agree with his guess that the light causing the problem is from camera lower left.

assuming lens flare *is* the case, the solution is to use the lens hood when shooting with offscreen lights. They're specifically for keeping light from hitting the front element at oblique angles and producing this sort of effect.

Do you have a filter on the lens?

Please show us more images with this spot.

I appreciate all the responses! I shoot against an illuminated background (mostly clothing photography). I have a small flash set up (Profoto e600). I use a light meter. I'm happy with my results, except when I shoot dark garments, these spots are very visible (they're always in the same places, and there are a few of them). If I angle my camera, to try to make this "back shoulder area spot" miss my garment, other spots creep in from the side and bottom. I use Lightroom 5 to fix these, but it's really slowing me down (and extremely tedious). I need to figure out what is happening with this, and hopefully fix it.

I did some experimenting today, shooting without my strobes, and I still had the spots... Maybe these have gotten a little worse since I did my first wet cleaning today. I got home late tonight. I'm going to call it a night. I'll revisit this tomorrow, and try to present some more images. Thanks again!

Good luck with this. If you are using a filter, try taking it off. If you are NOT using a hood, try putting one on. I'm not sure, but it may help to lower your BG light to just the point of blowing highlights, and no more.

As mathogre mentioned, you don't have "Editing Permitted" turned on but you are asking for help so I'll go ahead:

This makes it easier to see the spots. Levels, contrast, shadow highlight tools will all make it much easier to see them.
So I would take some other shots in different environments and see if they show up. That will help isolate the problem.
There are 4-5 spots there.

Check the back element of the lens to make sure it is clean. Also get a camera blower, go to sensor clean mode, and blow off the sensor. Let's rule out debris on either lens or sensor.

All right. I checked the back element of my lens. Blew that out with a blower and cleaned my lens again. I think my issue is lens flare/ghosts from my flash set up. Dialing my strobes down helped. I tried all different levels of flash, camera settings, shielding my lens from the flash, and moving my umbrellas around. I took my mannequin into the kitchen, and shot a black corduroy jacket without a flash (photo). Much better. It's hard to tell if it's perfect, because it's unbrushed corduroy...

I did notice a few large specks of dust inside my lens. I think these might be contributing significantly to the flare/blurriness that is appearing in my dark garments when using my flash. Is that likely what's happening? A couple years ago, when my camera was new, and I finally hammered out my workflow, I wasn't having this problem. I was sensitive to spots in my photos, from my old Canon G9. This is an issue that must have developed over time. I'm taking my camera to a shop tomorrow. I appreciate the help. Thank you!

[QUOTE=Choderboy;17991​448]As mathogre mentioned, you don't have "Editing Permitted" turned on but you are asking for help so I'll go ahead:

How do I enable "Editing Permitted?" Thank you