Remove Red Eyes

Removing Red Eyes

1.Load the photo The problem is straight: Rabbit eyes, caused by a flash being too close to the camera lens. 2.A separate tool The newer versions of Photoshop Elements already contain a separate automatic Red Eye Removal Tool that can also be activated by pressing Y. The options row at the top of the workplace contains two fields and an Auto button. Click the latter to search and remove the red eye automatically. That is, if the program succeeds. Sometimes it doesn’t, so you have to take matters into your own hands. You simply have to click somewhere near the eye and drag a rectangle around it. When you release the mouse button, reddishness disappears in accordance with the specified values. The vales are: Pupil Size, specifying the size of the pupil. This is the middle, preferably black area of the eye. In worse cases, reddish discoloration appears here. Darken Amount specifies the extent of darkening to be applied. 3. Pupil Size Here are a few examples for the proper setting of Pupil Size. We have specified 1% as Pupil Size for the left picture, and dragged a marquee around the eye as described above. Only the middle part of the redness has vanished, the edges still show the effect, thus producing an even weirder, unearthly result. You should use such low values when the pupil is very small, or the red eye effect is only visible in its middle. The right-side sample uses a much higher value of 65% that managed to eliminate all of the redness. You may even specify a slightly excessive pupil size that partly cuts into the iris. Overly large values, however, will damage the edge of the iris as well. Use a mid-range value first, and if you are unsatisfied, return to the previous state (press CTRL+Z) and increase or decrease the number as you see fit. 4. Darkness The above picture provides examples of extreme Darken Amount values. The left photo uses a value of 1%. The redness is gone, however, the middle of the eye remains bleached. This is at least as much of a problem as a red eye. The right-side sample uses a value increased to 100%, which turns out to be a bit excessive. It may do perfectly well if the photo contains a lot of black, but this particular picture is not very contrasty, so a very dark pupil sticks out heavily. Indeed, it loudly shouts, "I had a Red Eye Removal Tool treatment!" to the world. Once again, use a mid-range value first, undo any changes you don’t like and change the value in smaller steps. 4. Exorcised The final picture was prepared with a Pupil Size of 65%, and Darken Amount has been set to 60%. Redness has vanished, and the middle of the eye is appropriately dark, matching the contrast levels of the photo. Gone is the devil from the eye.

Remove Red Eyes II

Open the photo you wish to edit.

This time, let us focus on the red eye only.

In the Navigator window in the upper-right corner, set zoom to 200-300% (the larger, the better). The aim is to fill the workspace with the red eye(s). Zoom is required for accurate work.

The Sponge Tool, located on the left-side toolbar, is a good friend in many situations. It can be most easily evoked by pressing O. If the icon on the picture is inactive, hover the pointer over the icon (while pressing down the left button), and you can select the Sponge Tool from the appearing list.

Now that you have selected the tool, set its properties. In Photoshop 7.0 and newer versions, you can find the properties for the current tool on the top of the screen, directly below the main menu. In earlier versions, you can select Options and Brushes among the windows on the right.
First of all, select an adequately sized brush from the upper row of properties. The Sponge Tool will work with this diameter and properties. Red eye removal is best done with a soft brush with a size of 5 to 15 pixels. I have chosen a 9-pixel one. Diameter should always be less than the size of the red eye effect. In the Mode property window, choose Desaturate, as we want to decrease the intensity of a color. Flow shows the strength of the tool. Set it to 100%.

With the Sponge Tool brush, paint inside the red eye area with single clicks, and observe the red color slowly fading. After fading out both red eyes (or just one, if there's but a single eye showing :)), take a look at the picture to judge how natural the blacks of the eyes look. When dealing with darker reds, desaturation usually gives good enough a result, but "fully flashed", very bright red eyes require further treatment.

On this picture, the left eye is almost good, but the right one, being lighter, is rather unnatural.

Let's work on it a while more! Click on the same icon where you have found the Sponge Tool and leave the mouse button pressed. On the dropdown list, click the Burn Tool!

On the upper properties bar, set the Brush size to a bit smaller than the size of the pupil. On this picture, I found a size of 20 to 25 pixels appropriate. Set Range to Midtones, as we want to darken only the midtones of the picture, and set Exposure to a low value to enable fine work. I used a value of 20%. Now, once again with single clicks inside the black of the eye, darken it to the desired extent. The exact degree is up to you, the main thing is to reach a naturally-looking eye as a result. This is usually not done by darkening to absolute black. Click more into the center of the pupil to make it darker than the edges, which can remain a bit lighter. This also emphasizes the natural character of the eye. Exact degrees are determined by your sense of beauty - remember, this is why you can achieve better results than an automated program!

And here it is, the final result:

Later we will show a similar but slightly more complex process for the same purpose.

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