Eyeglass Glint

[sharonf]

I have a recent group photo that is not the best photo. I am trying to fix it the best that I can. One of the hardest things is trying to remove the glare from the eyeglasses of the several people wearing glasses. Can anyone tell me the best way to accomplish this?

[Paulie]

Post your picture for all to see!!

[sharonf]

Here it is. I saved it in tif form to work on but changed it to jpg to post here. As you can see it needs lots of work. The eyeglass glint seems to be the hardest part for me.

[Ed_L]

The attachment didn't go through. Try attaching a .jpg at 100K or under. Actually, the limit is 102,400 bytes, but I've had a problem at times posting over 100K.

Ed

[DannyRaphael]

Take a look at this tread... Ron describes a very effective technique.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/sho...&threadid=2586

~Danny~

[sharonf]

I'll try to see what I can do with a smaller size picture.Because it's a group shot, though, you might not be able to tell much from the picture.

[sharonf]

To reduce the picture to a small enough size to be accepted here you can't see the picture very well, but I'll post it anyway. Then I'll follow it with another post with a picture showing just those people with the eyeglass glint so you can see better.

[sharonf]

I can't seem to post a small enough picture to be accepted here that will show you anything of any value.

[Ed_L]

Maybe you could crop it very tight to only the problem area?

Ed

[sharonf]

The problem area is spread over the whole picture. I've selected several portions and combined them to a much smaller picture. Let's see if that works.

[K. Johnstone]

You know, this is something I always ask an expert, how to do these extensive glass glares. I've never gotten a good answer. The other question, best way to go about braces removal. I've met retouchers who keep a library of teeth and eyeballs, and then just plop them into a picture if it looks sort of right. Either that, imperfect, or it's just cloning and painting, that's the best I've ever heard. I'd be interested in hearing how everybody else would approach something like this.

I've fixed glass glare on prints with dye or colored pencils. We'd just draw 'em in. In Photoshop, people tend to borrow eyes from someone else in the picture, or the lab I used to contract for would demand another picture of the person with the ext. gg so they could do a swap, and if none was available--refuse the job. It's just too easy for it to look wrong. I got a picture once someone else had tried... a man and his wife. She had big blue eyes and he had squinty little brown eyes. The retoucher just made a selection of the whole eyeball from the gal and pasted them inside his frames, eyelashes makeup and all! The guy looked like Divine. At least they bothered to color them brown. If you're going to clone somebody's iris, at least make the contours of the person's eye their own (and eyes are never symetrical). I met a photographer, and he would put hairspray on people's glasses before the shoot. That's probably the best solution I've ever heard. But some photographers are afraid to ask that when their clients are rich.

Would fiddle with them more if this was for real, couple shadows are wrong, but figure you get the idea. I just drew these eyes in with the paintbrush on these lo-res heads. That's it, always sampling from the faces and painting them back. Start with the eyelashes and use the contours of their skin to figure where their eyes are. Then build them back. Did I get their eyes right? I just guessed. It's very important to work on a layer that's a copy of the background. That way you can flip between a before and after to see if you're actually following where their eyes should be. Also, after I'd stare at a picture like this a while, and I do, I flip the canvas horizontally. Regions of the brain get used to it and you lose perspective, helps you see it fresh. Also you may need to add noise at the end for the higher res version. Good luck with them, they are difficult ones.

KJ

[Flora]

Wow, KJ!

What you did is excellent!!!!

[sharonf]

You did an excellent job! I have spent hours already trying to fix this picture and have gotten part of it to look just fine, but I am nowhere near finished. You have done a fantastic job though...and much faster than me. I have borrowed eyes an glasses where appropriate but that doesn't always work if you want the picture to look natural.

[K. Johnstone]

Thanks.