Oh gee.
The coloured glare (like blue or green) is fairly easy to fix, but colourless glare is much harder.
I don't have any quick or clever fixes, sorry. What you've done here looks good.
Perfect! Now just below that layer add a white "Solid Color" layer, then invert its mask, then carefully paint it on over the overhanging parts of the photos.
No, the black on white one is fine.
Can you move that layer to the very top of the layer pile, then change its blend mode from "Normal" to "Multiply" then show me another screenshot?