Every time I take a photo off of my favorites on my phone, it syncs the photo right back on there in minutes. I can't seem to figure out where these are coming from. Where can you permanently unfavorite a photo?
I faintly recall having this issue before, but I think a simple restart of the phone should fix the issue. At any rate, there are three ways through which you can remove a photo from the favorites collection, you may try those which you haven't tried yet:
1. Go to "Favorites" in the Photo Hub and select the photo you wish to remove from the favorites. Tap on the "Heart Icon" at the bottom right. This should bring you to the next photo, since the previous photo has just been removed from the Favorites Collection.
2. Go to the Album where your photo is kept in the Photo Hub and tap the "heart icon" there (as in option 1).
3. Open the photo of concern and just edit it, e.g. rotate the photo clockwise, save it, and simply re-rotate it to the original orientation. This removes the photo from the favorites collection.
My L1020 is currently DEAD (Unable to find bootable option); I'll update you when I find other methods that work, after I have the L1020 replaced.
Hope these help.