Brown EYE retouching with impact??

[milzy]

There seems to be a lack of articles on retouching brown eyes.

Chances are when u see nicely retouched eyes they are in other colors.

Are there any resources on retouching brown eyes???

[Ankh1]

The same principles apply in my opinion, in most tutorials, they make the eye slightly lighter.

Personally brown eyes are supposed to be dark, so i like to keep them that way, maybe lighten then slightly by adding a hazel (green/light brown) hint to them if you want

[Xaran]

I'd suggest you post a photo of brown eyes and see what different people do to enhance them.

Christine

[milzy]

xaran your riight. Ok here's a shot i done on sunday of my gf.

Maybe i should just prac doing makeup, but yeah fire away guys.

I'd love to see what people come up with for brown eyes.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/telec...ach%20copy.jpg

[Iconogenic]

Adding catchlights can "revive" even the somberest eyes :-) I usually copy-paste catchlights from other pictures. Of course, you should keep the actual lighting in mind.

[Cassidy]

depending on skin colour and hair colour, often adding a gaussian blurred low opacity halo around the rims of the eyes can make a diff

[Ant]

Generally I want to see the pupil. Opening, if possible, the shadows enough to get definition between the pupil and the rest of the eye (iris) without going too 'cinammon' in color and retaining the feeling of dark brown eyes. Occasionally, making a selection between the iris and pupil and opening up that area slightly is all that is needed.

I'm sure your original file, well hopefully it does, has more info than available in your attached jpg, but here's the idea.

[grannysdc]

Ctrl+J to copy background
Small soft history brush set at screen and 100%
painted over brown areas while holding button down avoiding the whites, skin and lashes (painted 3 times on each eye to make it the "cinnamon" that Ant does not like)

[Ant]

It's not that I don't like it, it's just not true to her eye color and is most often the case in people with dark brown eyes...there is not so much red/yellow in their eyes in reality no matter the amount of light thrown into it in the original capture. The cinammon can look nice, but I am continually asked to make the eyes less cinammon in color generally.

[Ankh1]

grannysdc - Effect is ok, but yes, i think you should keep it more true to the original colour, also there is too much orange in the eyes.

It really does depend on the look, theres a fine art photographer from turkey on deviantart who i love, since most of his subjects ar turkish with brown eyes, he tends to retouch the eyes ALLOT to a orange colour and i actualy like it!

But if your working with a model or photographer (from modelmayhem for example), i would personally slightly lighten them, as ant said to see the pupil.

Brown eyes are meant to be dark and mysterious, i say keep em that way

[grannysdc]

Ant and Ankh1,

My intent was to show the OP how far you could take the eyes using 1 simple tool.. Tis just a sample.. Like Ant said, just "opening up the shadows", by using one pass would have probably been enough for a nice effect.

So, I happen to agree, I much prefer to see rich natural colors with good highlights instead of the translucent look like I presented here, whether they be brown, blue, green, or hazel.. although I did see a pair of the most beautiful, translucent, penetrating blue eyes on a young man in Germany that made my heart skip a couple beats (Memories from many, many years ago).

Back to reality, I feel if you want your Model to be happy, the eye color should not be changed much at all, because they are used to looking at their eyes and face every day and some feel that even minor changes look way to weird, same goes for scars, moles and wrinkles.. some people wear them like badges of honor and do not want them retouched at all..

If it is for a client and the model doesn't matter then it is a totally different situation because you have to make the money people happy, sometimes at the expense of the model.

Most of the time everything should be in harmony and compliment, instead of standing out as an "Eye Sore" ( just had to say it! JK)

For the OP "milzy" who asked "Are there any resources on retouching brown eyes???"

1: Photoshop to Create Superstars ... Scroll down to the eye part

2: How to Digitally Enhance Eyes

3: Change the Color of an Eye

4: Retouching Tutorials ›› Eye Enhancement

5: To change eye color, make a new selection of just the iris or colored part of the eye. (If the eyes are really dark you might want to use the soft brush Sponge Tool with a desaturate setting to remove some color first.) Grab the elliptical marquee tool and select the iris. Then go the image menu and select the adjustments item then select hue saturation.
A new box will pop open with three sliders. The one you are interested in is the hue slider at the top. Try dragging this slider around to see how the eye changes color. For even more color variations you can try clicking the colorize check box at the bottom right corner of the dialog box and then slide the hue slider around again. The saturation slider will adjust the intensity of the color of the eye. When you find a good color write the values down as you will want to apply the same values to the other eye, then just click ok.

Either individually or using a combination of the above methods will work with Brown or darkly colored eyes.