Red-Eye Reduction – Blue Eyes

TC
Posted By
tony cooper
Dec 7, 2006
Views
859
Replies
17
Status
Closed
Still looking for the perfect red-eye reduction process in Photoshop
7.

My grandson, shown at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg has very light-colored blue eyes. When I try to correct flash photos with red-eye, I can eliminate the red-eye but the result is eyes that are much darker than the real color. The process that I use works fine on situations with other subjects where the normal eye color is fairly dark, but not on the light-blue eyes.

I’ve tried many different red-eye reduction methods, and currently use Lasso eye>Image>Apply Image>Channel: Green & Blending: Darken>OK to take the red-eye out of the lassoed selection. As I said, works OK for dark eyes, but not for the light-blue eyes.

Suggestions?

BTW: That’s chocolate birthday cake smeared all over him. Not what you might have thought.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

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DL
Don Leman
Dec 7, 2006
Hi Tony,

Perhaps you could point us to a photo of your grandson with red-eye and we could try and come up with a solution that would work for you.


Don Leman

"Tony Cooper" wrote in message
Still looking for the perfect red-eye reduction process in Photoshop
7.

My grandson, shown at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg has very light-colored blue eyes. When I try to correct flash photos with red-eye, I can eliminate the red-eye but the result is eyes that are much darker than the real color. The process that I use works fine on situations with other subjects where the normal eye color is fairly dark, but not on the light-blue eyes.

I’ve tried many different red-eye reduction methods, and currently use Lasso eye>Image>Apply Image>Channel: Green & Blending: Darken>OK to take the red-eye out of the lassoed selection. As I said, works OK for dark eyes, but not for the light-blue eyes.

Suggestions?

BTW: That’s chocolate birthday cake smeared all over him. Not what you might have thought.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
K
KatWoman
Dec 7, 2006
"Don Leman" wrote in message
Hi Tony,

Perhaps you could point us to a photo of your grandson with red-eye and we could try and come up with a solution that would work for you.

Don Leman

"Tony Cooper" wrote in message
Still looking for the perfect red-eye reduction process in Photoshop
7.

My grandson, shown at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg has very light-colored blue eyes. When I try to correct flash photos with red-eye, I can eliminate the red-eye but the result is eyes that are much darker than the real color. The process that I use works fine on situations with other subjects where the normal eye color is fairly dark, but not on the light-blue eyes.

I’ve tried many different red-eye reduction methods, and currently use Lasso eye>Image>Apply Image>Channel: Green & Blending: Darken>OK to take the red-eye out of the lassoed selection. As I said, works OK for dark eyes, but not for the light-blue eyes.

Suggestions?

BTW: That’s chocolate birthday cake smeared all over him. Not what you might have thought.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

that’s why I love ambient daylight for portraits better
as the example you show
but if you want flash portraits do not use the pop up one from the camera But if you have to buy the little diffuser thingy that goes over it (I have tried a rubber band and white tissue works in a pinch
does you camera not have the red eye reduction feature?? we use strobes that do not make red eye

to fix red eye you may have better luck using desaturate rather than cloning or painting in a color
TC
tony cooper
Dec 7, 2006
On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:07:18 GMT, "Don Leman"
wrote:

Hi Tony,

Perhaps you could point us to a photo of your grandson with red-eye and we could try and come up with a solution that would work for you.

Sure. The image at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/redeye.jpg contains two cropped down photos that both have serious red-eye. I can correct the younger grandson’s red-eye because he has dark brown eyes. When I correct the older grandson’s red-eye, his eyes come out much darker than his eyes are in daylight pictures:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg

Here’s my attempt to correct the red-eye in the lower picture: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/redeye2.jpg

There’s too much red fringe left, but this attempt isn’t as bad as some. I had enough blue iris unaffected by the flash to show some blue. Just the pupil was affected. On this, I used Image>Image Adjustments>Green Channel& Darken on the selected area.

Using the Selection method, it’s really hard for me not to leave a red fringe as seen in this image.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
TC
tony cooper
Dec 7, 2006
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 13:33:04 -0500, "KatWoman"
wrote:

"Don Leman" wrote in message
Hi Tony,

Perhaps you could point us to a photo of your grandson with red-eye and we could try and come up with a solution that would work for you.

Don Leman

"Tony Cooper" wrote in message
Still looking for the perfect red-eye reduction process in Photoshop
7.

My grandson, shown at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg has very light-colored blue eyes. When I try to correct flash photos with red-eye, I can eliminate the red-eye but the result is eyes that are much darker than the real color. The process that I use works fine on situations with other subjects where the normal eye color is fairly dark, but not on the light-blue eyes.

I’ve tried many different red-eye reduction methods, and currently use Lasso eye>Image>Apply Image>Channel: Green & Blending: Darken>OK to take the red-eye out of the lassoed selection. As I said, works OK for dark eyes, but not for the light-blue eyes.

Suggestions?

BTW: That’s chocolate birthday cake smeared all over him. Not what you might have thought.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

that’s why I love ambient daylight for portraits better
as the example you show
but if you want flash portraits do not use the pop up one from the camera But if you have to buy the little diffuser thingy that goes over it (I have tried a rubber band and white tissue works in a pinch
does you camera not have the red eye reduction feature?? we use strobes that do not make red eye

Not to sound unappreciative of comments offered, but I *do* know ambient light and daylight is better than flash. The thing is, you sometimes have a shot where flash is the only option. Most of the holiday shots will be indoor shots.

I don’t do portraits. I do candids. With two little kids running around the house, setting up external lighting is just not practical. It might be if I *was* going for a portrait, but not to shoot just pix that are taken as part of the regular evening.

to fix red eye you may have better luck using desaturate rather than cloning or painting in a color

Before I posted the first time, I tried some on-line tutorials. The one using desaturate came out with eyes as flat and gray as a shark’s eyes.

I haven’t tried diffusing the flash as you mention. Sometimes I’ll force the flash not to fire, get a too-dark image, and correct with Curves.

My real point is that when you do have a good photo over-all, but there’s red-eye, how to go about correcting it.


Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
MR
Mike Russell
Dec 7, 2006
"Tony Cooper" wrote in message
….
My real point is that when you do have a good photo over-all, but there’s red-eye, how to go about correcting it.

Zoom in on the red eye, click on the red channel in the channel palette, and paint the iris of the red channel black. If there is a catchlight it will turn cyan, which is usually OK. You can fix it by painting it white again with a smaller brush.

If you are using Elements, set the foreground color to cyan RGB(0,255,255), and set the brush mode to multiply to blacken the red channel. —

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/
TB
Tony Blair
Dec 7, 2006
"Tony Cooper" wrote in message
On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:07:18 GMT, "Don Leman"
wrote:

Hi Tony,

Perhaps you could point us to a photo of your grandson with red-eye and we could try and come up with a solution that would work for you.

Sure. The image at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/redeye.jpg contains two cropped down photos that both have serious red-eye. I can correct the younger grandson’s red-eye because he has dark brown eyes. When I correct the older grandson’s red-eye, his eyes come out much darker than his eyes are in daylight pictures:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg
Here’s my attempt to correct the red-eye in the lower picture: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/redeye2.jpg
There’s too much red fringe left, but this attempt isn’t as bad as some. I had enough blue iris unaffected by the flash to show some blue. Just the pupil was affected. On this, I used Image>Image Adjustments>Green Channel& Darken on the selected area.
Using the Selection method, it’s really hard for me not to leave a red fringe as seen in this image.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

Hi Tony

I think you have your attempt about right!! the ‘red eye’ is actually on the black part of the eye (the pupil) the blue part is not reflective and does not change to red!!
H
hairboy
Dec 8, 2006
Tony Cooper wrote:
On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:07:18 GMT, "Don Leman"
wrote:

Hi Tony,

Perhaps you could point us to a photo of your grandson with red-eye and we could try and come up with a solution that would work for you.

Sure. The image at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/redeye.jpg contains two cropped down photos that both have serious red-eye. I can correct the younger grandson’s red-eye because he has dark brown eyes. When I correct the older grandson’s red-eye, his eyes come out much darker than his eyes are in daylight pictures:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg
Here’s my attempt to correct the red-eye in the lower picture: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/redeye2.jpg
There’s too much red fringe left, but this attempt isn’t as bad as some. I had enough blue iris unaffected by the flash to show some blue. Just the pupil was affected. On this, I used Image>Image Adjustments>Green Channel& Darken on the selected area.
Using the Selection method, it’s really hard for me not to leave a red fringe as seen in this image.

That attempt is good enough, if it were for me, but you must have an eye of a hawk! If you further want to reduce red fringe, can you not sample the red fringe with the colour range, and desaturate the selection? And level appropriate channel in the blue eye area afterwards to match? Don’t know how clear the original image is, so hard to say, but HTH.
B
br
Dec 8, 2006
"Tony Cooper" wrote in message
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 13:33:04 -0500, "KatWoman"
wrote:

My real point is that when you do have a good photo over-all, but there’s red-eye, how to go about correcting it.
Try this;

Zoom in on the eyes so they are big enough.

Press "Q" to enter Quick Mask.

Press "B" to select Brush tool.

Paint the pupil/red area with brush at 100%.

Press "Q" to exit Quick Mask.

Press Shift+Ctrl+I to invert the selection.

Go to Channels palette.

Go to the Blue Channel and Ctrl+C to copy the selection from just that channel.

Go to the Red Channel and Ctrl+V to paste from the Blue.

Go to the Green Channel and Ctrl+C

Go to the Red Channel and Ctrl+V.

Ctrl+D to deselect.
M
Marcin
Dec 8, 2006
Tony,

I rather do everything using CS2, however, when I have to reduce red eyes I use IrfanView.
The final effect is much natural than in CS2.

Marcin Gorgolewski
www.mybestphotos.batcavbe.net

Uzytkownik "Tony Cooper" napisal w wiadomosci
Still looking for the perfect red-eye reduction process in Photoshop
7.

My grandson, shown at
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/2cake.jpg has very light-colored blue eyes. When I try to correct flash photos with red-eye, I can eliminate the red-eye but the result is eyes that are much darker than the real color. The process that I use works fine on situations with other subjects where the normal eye color is fairly dark, but not on the light-blue eyes.

I’ve tried many different red-eye reduction methods, and currently use Lasso eye>Image>Apply Image>Channel: Green & Blending: Darken>OK to take the red-eye out of the lassoed selection. As I said, works OK for dark eyes, but not for the light-blue eyes.

Suggestions?

BTW: That’s chocolate birthday cake smeared all over him. Not what you might have thought.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
G
granny
Dec 8, 2006
Granny typed:
[snip]
I personally hate the red eye reduction on the camera.. there is already way to much lag time. Sooo.. I get a lot of red eye when I use the on camera flash..

The following method works well for me and eliminates the flat like a shark’s eyes look.

First Ctrl+J to copy the original layer then I go to the layers menu and uncheck the original eyeball.

Zoom to 600% or 800% on an eye

Go into quick mask by pressing Q on the keyboard.

Paint the entire eyeball including the whites with a small brush.(paint within the lines)

Repeat for the other eyes… I even do the teeth (Just make sure you have a hard brush and avoid the gums..paint within the lines)

Get out of quick mask mode by pressing Q again.. that should show all your selections

Invert the selection by pressing Shift+Ctrl+I

Go to Image, adjustments, Hue/Saturation.

Press Ctrl+1(brings up "Reds" in the edit box)

Using the saturation slider .. slide it all the way to the left ( this gets rid of the red) and leaves the other colors alone)

Using the lightness slider move it to the left to about -40 or till an eye looks right to you

Sometimes I have a magenta hue left that is noticeable,…. Like in the little ones eyes in the orange shirt in your picture,.. just press Ctrl+6 to edit the magenta and using the saturation slider again move it to the far left… then lighten if needed.

The next step helps clean the teeth and the whites of the eyes a little.. press Ctrl+2 to edit the yellows.. use the lightness slider and move to the right until the teeth look good.

Press OK in the Hue/Saturation popup.

Press Ctrl+D to deselect your selections.

Double click the Zoom tool to get back to 100%.. check out the magic

I save as… using an appended "A" to the original file name, thus leaving my original untouched

Believe me, it is a lot faster to do than to try and explain —
"Granny"
Old N Slow N Prefer Quick N Easy
JM
John McWilliams
Dec 9, 2006
granny wrote:
Granny typed:
[snip]
I personally hate the red eye reduction on the camera.. there is already way to much lag time. Sooo.. I get a lot of red eye when I use the on camera flash..

The following method works well for me and eliminates the flat like a shark’s eyes look.

First Ctrl+J to copy the original layer then I go to the layers menu and uncheck the original eyeball.

Zoom to 600% or 800% on an eye

Go into quick mask by pressing Q on the keyboard.

Paint the entire eyeball including the whites with a small brush.(paint within the lines)

Repeat for the other eyes… I even do the teeth (Just make sure you have a hard brush and avoid the gums..paint within the lines)
Get out of quick mask mode by pressing Q again.. that should show all your selections

Invert the selection by pressing Shift+Ctrl+I

Go to Image, adjustments, Hue/Saturation.

Press Ctrl+1(brings up "Reds" in the edit box)
Using the saturation slider .. slide it all the way to the left ( this gets rid of the red) and leaves the other colors alone)

Using the lightness slider move it to the left to about -40 or till an eye looks right to you

Sometimes I have a magenta hue left that is noticeable,…. Like in the little ones eyes in the orange shirt in your picture,.. just press Ctrl+6 to edit the magenta and using the saturation slider again move it to the far left… then lighten if needed.

The next step helps clean the teeth and the whites of the eyes a little.. press Ctrl+2 to edit the yellows.. use the lightness slider and move to the right until the teeth look good.

Press OK in the Hue/Saturation popup.

Press Ctrl+D to deselect your selections.

Double click the Zoom tool to get back to 100%.. check out the magic
I save as… using an appended "A" to the original file name, thus leaving my original untouched

Believe me, it is a lot faster to do than to try and explain

And, believe me, it’s worth learning how to avoid this in the first place. It starts with using a dedicated flash unit, bouncing if possible, and keeping as far away from the lens as practical.


John McWilliams
N
nomail
Dec 9, 2006
/\BratMan/\ wrote:

Go to the Blue Channel and Ctrl+C to copy the selection from just that channel.

Go to the Red Channel and Ctrl+V to paste from the Blue.
Go to the Green Channel and Ctrl+C

Go to the Red Channel and Ctrl+V.

That’s a rather pointless exercise. First you paste the blue channel into the red channel, but then you undo that by pasting the green channel into the red channel as well, which will replace what you just pasted from the blue channel.

You should copy the darkest channel, and paste that into BOTH other channels. That will make the eye dark and neutral.


Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl
TC
tony cooper
Dec 10, 2006
On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:50:58 -0800, John McWilliams
wrote:

granny wrote:
Granny typed:
[snip]
I personally hate the red eye reduction on the camera.. there is already way to much lag time. Sooo.. I get a lot of red eye when I use the on camera flash..

The following method works well for me and eliminates the flat like a shark’s eyes look.

First Ctrl+J to copy the original layer then I go to the layers menu and uncheck the original eyeball.

Zoom to 600% or 800% on an eye

Go into quick mask by pressing Q on the keyboard.

Paint the entire eyeball including the whites with a small brush.(paint within the lines)

And, believe me, it’s worth learning how to avoid this in the first place. It starts with using a dedicated flash unit, bouncing if possible, and keeping as far away from the lens as practical.

That’s entirely beside the point. The question was not "How do I prevent red-eye?", but "How do I correct red-eye?".

I have three cameras, but only one with a hot shoe for flash. I have external lights that I can set up to eliminate the need for flash. Either can be used for posed pictures.

Sometimes, though, a candid opportunity comes up where the first available camera is grabbed, and the resulting picture includes a bad case of red-eye. Rather than scrap the opportunity or the photo, knowing the best way to correct the problem is essential.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
B
B
Dec 10, 2006
On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:13:17 -0500, Tony Cooper
wrote:

On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:50:58 -0800, John McWilliams
wrote:

granny wrote:
Granny typed:
[snip]
snip

From someone who is still very much a learner and quoting what is said in ‘the book’

1. Using zoom tool drag a marquee around the eyes to zoom into them.

2. Select red eye tool hidden under the spot healing brush

3. On the tool options bar leave the pupil size set to 50%, (OK maybe whatever you are working in) but change the darken amount to 10% Darken specifies how dark the pupil should be. Because the child’s eyes are blue, we want the darken amount setting to be lighter than the default.

4. Click on the red area in the boy’s left eye, then click the red area in his right. The red retinal reflection disappears.

Hope that helps….

Keith J Chesworth

www.unseenlondon.co.uk
www.blackpooltram.co.uk
www.amerseyferry.co.uk – updated 11/06
JM
John McWilliams
Dec 10, 2006
Tony Cooper wrote:
On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:50:58 -0800, John McWilliams
wrote:

And, believe me, it’s worth learning how to avoid this in the first place. It starts with using a dedicated flash unit, bouncing if possible, and keeping as far away from the lens as practical.

That’s entirely beside the point. The question was not "How do I prevent red-eye?", but "How do I correct red-eye?".

The question was already answered. My "besides the point" point was just that: an additional point.
I have three cameras, but only one with a hot shoe for flash. I have external lights that I can set up to eliminate the need for flash. Either can be used for posed pictures.

Sometimes, though, a candid opportunity comes up where the first available camera is grabbed, and the resulting picture includes a bad case of red-eye. Rather than scrap the opportunity or the photo, knowing the best way to correct the problem is essential.

Wasn’t suggesting anyone forgo an opportunity for lack of perfect setup.


John McWilliams
TC
tony cooper
Dec 11, 2006
On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:04:06 GMT, Tony Cooper
wrote:

Still looking for the perfect red-eye reduction process in Photoshop
7.

Thanks to all who replied to this, including those that replied by e-mail. I’ve tried all the suggestions.

To my eye, the Irfanview red-eye reduction process is the simplest to use and the results are close enough to being equal to the results of the more complex processes that require more steps. There might be individual pictures where the more complex processes would work better, but not in the images I’ve worked on.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
TC
tony cooper
Dec 12, 2006
On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:25:57 +0000, BoilerBill wrote:

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:13:17 -0500, Tony Cooper
wrote:

On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:50:58 -0800, John McWilliams
wrote:

granny wrote:
Granny typed:
[snip]
snip

From someone who is still very much a learner and quoting what is said in ‘the book’

1. Using zoom tool drag a marquee around the eyes to zoom into them.
2. Select red eye tool hidden under the spot healing brush
3. On the tool options bar leave the pupil size set to 50%, (OK maybe whatever you are working in) but change the darken amount to 10% Darken specifies how dark the pupil should be. Because the child’s eyes are blue, we want the darken amount setting to be lighter than the default.

4. Click on the red area in the boy’s left eye, then click the red area in his right. The red retinal reflection disappears.
Hope that helps….

Somewhere along the line my post was trimmed. I use Photoshop 7 which does not have a red-eye tool. I think that’s a feature added in CS2.



Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

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