digital photo editing

Photoshop Tutorials - red-eye removal

When photographing people with a flash sometimes the subjects in the photo will have red-eyes.
Below you will find one of the many red-eye removal solutions to fix this using a photo editing software.
This technique works in Photoshop 4 and up, including Photoshop LE and Photoshop Elements.

1. Open the photo, and go to Image > Duplicate.. so as to always have an untouched original.

2. Select the copied image to work on. Duplicate the "Background" layer (Ctrl+J).

3. Use the eyedropper to choose a colour from the iris of the eye. It should be a reasonably neutral tint with a hint of the eye colour.

4. On the new layer, paint carefully over the red part of the eyes.

5. Go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian and give it a 1 pixel blur to soften the edges.

6. Set the layer blend mode to Saturation. This will take the red out without removing highlights, but this often leaves the eyes empty and unreal looking, as you can see from the example below.

7. If this is the case for your photo, duplicate the Saturation layer and change the blend mode to Hue. This should add some colour while still preserving the highlights.

8. If the colour is a bit strong after adding the Hue layer, decrease the opacity of the layer.

9. For final retouching, I used the burn tool to darken the overall tone of the eyes, then used the dodge tool at a smaller pixel size to brighten the highlight in the eyes.
Both tools were set at Range: Highlights
Use the eraser tool on layer one to clean up any painting outside the iris.
10. When you're happy with the final result you can flatten the image and save the photo.

Move your mouse over the image below to see the "before and after" photos.
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