An article appeared on Apartment Therapy that claimed that a scratched camera lens can be repaired using peanut butter and/or toothpaste. This strikes me as a horrible idea that could make a bad situation worse due to surface coatings or just adding new scratches.
Is this a correct assessment, or can you actually remove scratches from a lens with light abrasives in such a way that the optics are not impacted?
Answer
Most minor scratches on lens' have an infinitesimal impact on image quality. They look a lot worse than they are, especially in terms of the front element of a lens. This is because the light from a point source in the scene being photographed is spread over the entire area of the lens as it enters the front element before being focused (hopefully) to a point on the image plane behind the lens.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Look at the results, and then the lens they were shot with at this blog post from lensrentals.com.
By introducing an oily substance such as peanut butter to the surface of the lens you are just going to increase the amount of the lens' surface that is affected by less than optimum performance, and will probably cause more dirt and dust to "stick" to the lens. The toothpaste, especially if it is clear, would be less problematic than the peanut butter but would only serve to possibly make a scratch on the lens less noticeable when inspecting the lens at the cost of optical performance when actually taking pictures with the lens.
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