I would like to find out if there is a tutorial on how to retouch photos where there is a lot of reflection (glare) of a flashlight on a person's spectacles. I would like to learn how to retouch such photos. I am very used to Paintshop Pro but if there is a tutorial of this in Photoshop or Photo Impact I am willing to learn the specific software as well.
I have noticed that there quite a number of tutorials now on red eye and other problems, but I have been searching now for two weekends and couldn't get a single one.....
Your help will be much appreciate.
Many thanks
Poppie

Hi Poppie - and welcome to the site! We southern Africans are a rare breed it seems! (My stepson's at UCT)

There is a tutorial on exactly this problem in Katrin Eismann's book PhotoShop Restoration and Retouching. Basically, what it involves, if the reflection is bad, is "cloning" information from elsewhere on the same photo to cover the reflection. I suppose it depends on the individual case as to how successful this could be.

Perhaps someone else has a suggestion for a more accessible tutorial, e.g. on the web? But that book is a must-have if you want to do any quantity of photo retouching. And, no, I'm not getting a commission!!!

Why don't you post the photo in question so we can have a stab at it?

Sam

Hi Sam,
My oh my, nice to meet you! Yes there are very few South African's around *smiles*..... Wonder in what province you live ..
Thanks for that information. I guess the book is quite costly? Do one order it from JASC?
I will first look and see if I dont get input for other available tutorials as well.
I really appreciate you coming back to me on this.

Poppie

I'm sure most of the bigger bookshops would be able to source the book for you. Or Amazon, of course! Best of luck.

BTW, I'm in Zimbabwe, not South Africa - for my sins ...

Cheers,

Sam

Glass glare can be a real pain in the neck sometimes. Every case is different and can require different approaches. I've read the bit about glare in Katrin Eismann's book, but it's not a very in-depth tutorial (although the book is very good).
For a very bad glare I use several techniques together.
1. Grab good skin from other parts of the face.
2. grab bits of the eye that are good and move them by rotating, etc, into the bad parts. (remember, you can use parts of left eye to build right eye, etc).
3. Hold down the alt key (Win) and click on New Layer, put the layer mode to Overlay and check the Fill with 50% gray box. Use your Burn tool to bring out detail. You can also paint with black on a low opacity to bring back shadows.
4. Paint with Color. Put your Brush tool on Color Mode and a LOW opacity and paint on a new layer to color correct. I also correct with the Selective Color command.
5. For the extreme cases keep a file with a collection of eyes that you can borrow from to rebuild eyes that you can't see. (I keep a file with teeth for removing braces and other body parts as well).

These are just a few ideas. Attached is a glass glare removal that was kinda tough.

I have removed this image and abreviated it to add further down the line in this thread, because of client privacy, BIG OOPS.

Carrie
That's excellent!


Poppie
Welcome to Retouch Pro. Can't improve much on Carrie's technique. As she states, every situation is different and it's pretty much a clone and paste job. Let us know how it translates to Paintshop Pro for you since it's mainly Photoshop instructions. I'm not familiar with Paintshop but there are other members on this site who are. Maybe they have a good tutorial for this situation in that editing program.
DJ

That is perfect Carrie.

Carrie
That was a great job that you did with the glasses. That's a frequent problem.Liked your idea about making up a collection of parts. Awhile back I found a file of skintones and hairtones on this site(don't remember where) that have also been very useful in retouching.

Paulette

Carrie.

I couldn't believe that was the same photo..... Wow

Thanks Sharon, Paulette and Goldcoin too. I'm sorry I couldn't post a higher res image; I piddled around a lot burning flecks in the iris' and so on.
Yea, Paulette, the "body bank" always comes in handy, I keep animal parts too, never know when you might need to slap in a pair of cat eyes (or ears).
I'm gonna look for the skin tones.

Carrie, Sam & All the Other Friends,

That is BRILLIANT!! Thank you for the info. I copied it to MS Word and will have my tutorial now.
Thank you SO much.
My apologies for replying only now. I was off line.
Will be off line again until about July now.
Will see you then.
Hugs
Poppie
Cape Town in South Africa

Poppie, I hope I catch you before you go "off line". I just wanted to say that now you have the info to remove GG (glass glare) at will, the only thing to do now is...experiment! That is always the best way to learn.
Good luck and we'll miss ya around here, so be back soon, k?

Carrie

Thanks for the kind words.
I cant wait to be back - but duties come first *smiles*.
Hugs & bye for now ..
Poppie

Carrie
Here's where the skin and hair tones are on this site:
http://www.retouchpro.com/pages/colors.html It is called Bruce Beard's Hair& Skin Charts.
They are a good start to making a file of your own.
Paulette

Grat job Carrie :)

Sanda, Thanks!

Paulette, I went to the page and got me some skin and hair. Thanks a lot. I did a project not long ago that included over 100 pictures of a woman who wanted the dark roots of her blond hair lightened to blend with the rest. I wonder if I might have made use of these hair tones. I did paint with Color some, but also used Selective color to adjusting from Reds and Neutrals. It was a long and tedious job making the hair look real and not fuzzy or washed out.

Example attached

Wow!! Carrie, that looks fantastic. You would never have known it was touched up.
DJ

I appreciate that DJ, there is some softness in there where I probably could have painted or burnt in a little more detail, BUT considering I had to do over a hundred of these and the prints were mostly 5"x7" s I figured this would do. Most importantly...I learned from the experience, smile.

Without thinking I posted a "whole" face. No trouble, but thought I'd better change that. I repost just the eyes here.