Hi Josh,
One of the most useful photography accessories you can own is a lens hood.
Most recreational photographers seem to treat the hood as an unloved add-on that stays in the original box until one day they go to sell it again. Hoods are not as glamorous as filters… and yet they have a significantly more important job to do.
The main task of a lens hood is to stop bright light sources entering the lens and causing flare - that golden spot you see in the middle of your picture.
Flare can come in a variety of forms depending on the light source and the quality of the lens. In some instances it will just appear as a couple of marks within a photograph, while in other instances it may totally flatten the contrast of a photograph.
The job of the lens hood is to block this light reaching the lens… although it is worth noting that the lens hoods on most zoom lenses only offer a compromise solution; there is no way that a lens hood on a zoom lens can give total protection through the entire zoom range.
Ideally you should use a lens hood all the time and if you do see flare appearing in an image, try putting your hand up above the lens to block out the stray light.
Now, as for how to manage flare in post-production… the advice here is to brush up on your retouching skills.
I would start by opening the image in Photoshop and then duplicating the background layer two or three times. I would then go to work on one of those duplicate layers and use a variety of techniques, from cloning through to some gentle tonal adjustment, to get the image looking good. One of the advantages of working with duplicate layers is that you can simply turn a layer off and on again to compare how the image is looking.
I hope this is a help….
Cheers,
Anthony