Absolute Beginner's Guide to Digital Photography

Before you begin your red-eye retouching journey, keep in mind this important sug-

gestion: Keep the highlights! A person’s eyes only look real if the highlight remains.

You can fill in their eyes with black, but they won’t look real.

Using Layers to Remove Red Eye

The following steps show you how to use layers and layer blend modes to reduce red

eye in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. This section assumes some of the per-

son’s accurate eye color is still available in the image. You might be able to see a

slight border of the person’s original eye color around the red iris. If not, use another

method in this chapter to remove red eye.

1. Open an image and choose File, Save As to save a copy.


2. Make sure the Layer tab is visible (by choosing Window, Layers if you don’t
   see it onscreen). Create a new layer by clicking the new layer icon in the
   lower-right corner of the Layers window. Make sure the new layer is active
   (highlighted in the Layer window).


3. Zoom in on the red eye as much as possible. Use the Eyedropper tool to click
   a color closer to the person’s actual eye color. The color will most likely
   appear as a gray tint in the image.


4. Choose a brush or airbrush and paint over the red part of the eye on the new
   layer. Avoid any other part of the eye, including the eyelids.


5. Blur the paint job by choosing File, Blur, Gaussian Blur. A blur value of 1.00
   should be okay.

CHAPTER 22 THE PORTRAIT 331

FIGURE 22.5
Repeat offend-
ers: Red eye is
common when-
ever the flash is
close to the
lens.