WonByOne_PhotoShopClass11

It shouldn't be too hard for you to come up with a portrait of your family member or friend you might have taken recently that displays red eye problem we are talking about. We will get to work on how to correct for this problem in Photoshop in a minute, but let's learn we this problem actually exists. Below is an illustration showing how the flash and lens converge to illuminate the inside of the eye. Remember, the closer the flash is to the lens opening, the greater the risk of red eye. If you have ever seen a professional wedding photographer, they most likely will have their flash mounted high above the lens on a flash bracket. This insures them of images without that irritating eye problem.

Here are the two items we will use for adjusting the eyes in your image. They are the Brush tool and the Brush Options menu.

You will use the Brush tool very often in Photoshop as an everyday user. You will get used to the way it functions and gain knowledge on the best ways for it to work just for your tastes.

Notice the two main sliders in the Brush Options menu. These will be your left and right arms in adjusting or fixing almost anything. The Master Diameter slider changes the size of the brush diameter while the Hardness slider changes the affective density of the brush stroke.

If you are interested in applying subtle color to an area which open and large, you might choose a large Diameter setting such as 200-350 pixels, but only 15-25% Hardness.

But for our need here, we are going to use a pretty small Diameter such as 3-5 pixels and start with a Hardness of around 33%. These setting gets us in the general area of adjustment needed for "retina rendering" for most portraits.

You'll want to zoom in as close as you need to see accurately. I try to get my view somewhat pixilated with the eyes filling the screen. You'll really see what you're fixing at this point.

Make sure the Brush tool is selected (Fig 1). This will enable the view of other related options.
Make sure the Color Palette top color is set to Black (Fig 2). If there are other colors set from a previous usage, just click on the black/white tile below the palette which resets the palette to Black on top. This will be used to blacken the red areas. Using the 3-5 pixel brush size, gently color-in the red areas, even the eye's "catch light." We'll take care of that next. We use black because we are covering what the camera's flash illuminated; the inside of the eye.
Once you have finished covering the red, switch the Color Palette over to White by clicking on the two-sided arrows. The White should now be on top (Fig 3). Now, change the Brush size down to 1-3 pixels for a quick touch-up. We will add the catch-light back into the eye. Try to make sure you add the same amount of whiteness to either eye and that the concentric proportions are correct... that the white spots are in the same place. If this is not done correctly, it will looked like it has been touched up.

Evaluate your work to make sure you like what you see. If you think you can do better, don't save the image, close it and then re-open it again. Now you can start fresh. Practice makes perfect in this case. Show your results to friends to see if they can tell what you've done!