Racoon eyes - quick fix

[winwintoo]

I'm probably the last to know this, but just in case I'm not alone, I'll pass it along.

I tried several methods to lighten the skin behind my sister's dark glasses, but couldn't come up with a natural look until now.

Here's how:
1. create a new, empty, transparent layer; set it's blending mode to soft light.

2. on the empty layer, paint with a light gray over the sections of the image you want to be lighter (in this case, I used a light gray from her hair)

Voila!!

Hope this helps, Margaret

Ps. I didn't take the time to remove the reflection spots - please share your hints for doing that!!

[WendyW]

I guess you were the next to the last to find out about this ... as I didn't know it either. All I can say is WOW it works, so thanks for the tip.

[Noko]

Thanks for the tip, just another weapon in my arsenal.

Another way to do this is to make a copy of the layer. Change the blending mode to screen, add a black mask to this layer (alt/opt) add vector mask. Make selection of the glasses and feather the selection by about 2 pixels depending on the resolution of the image. Change the foreground color to white and turn the opacity and flow way down on the brush. Start painting the mask to lighten the eyes up.

This way I think you have a little more control on how light you want it to be, plus if you go to far you can always paint back with black. I also think the luminosity is a little better.

[winwintoo]

Thanks Noko, You're rignt of course, I didn't go far enough in my example, but I'm only using Photoshop Elements 2, so I don't have access to all the tools you mentioned.

I do have Richard's book, but haven't yet had time to install it and play around with it.

Is that Doug I hear approaching with a request that you write up a tutorial - I think that would be very useful.

Margaret

[WendyW]

Margaret,

Even with Richard's tools you still won't have all the tools mentioned but using Elements try:

1. Copy layer, set blend mode to screen.

2. Add layer mask (using Richard's tools), fill the layer mask with black.

3. Change foreground colour to white, select a soft brush and reduce the opacity.

4. Paint on the black mask.