You could just scrape away the bump with a stiff putty knife and patch or screw them back in until they are below the surface of the wall and then patch.

I just did Paintguy's method a couple weeks ago when our entry was painted!
He described (on a recent thread here somewhere) using a screw right next to the nail to pull the nail back in with the underside of the screw-head.

A couple of MY nail-bumps (out of 6 in the same corner!) were 10'+ up on our high entry wall...right next to the front wall which we weren't gonna paint yet! Had to be carefull not to nick that front wall.
* After a couple spackle-fills and rounds of flush-sanding, I wiped all the sanding dust off the clean wall.
* Had to use painters-tape & plastic to cover-up the adjacent wall cuz I had to shoot some spray-texture over these spots.
* When spray-tex was dry, I lightly brushed a hazy coat of primer over these spots, then turned the project over to the painter coming the next day! All they had to do now was roll the Gray C2-One primer & 2 coats of Matte Paint.
* I must've done a good job! Can't even tell where I did repairs on that wall...

Faron

Thank you, will try to do that. Im a petite woman, who is very excited about colors and painting, but now if I have to do this nails and screws stuff, hhmmm not too excited about that.. but if it has to be done, then it has to be done. Thanks for advices.

The bump outs over *screws* are usually caused by rusted screw heads (cheap screws or nails) releasing the spackling.

Once you remove the bubble, inspect the screw or nail head. If it's rusty, prime it with a shot of CoverStain aerosol or any other alkyd primer you may have. After the primer is dry, proceed accordingly with spackling and sanding.

Be sure to prime over all patches prior to painting.

Michael