HELP!! Eyeglass Glare!!

[W3Images]

Help!! I shot some wedding photos which ended up with eyeglass glare in some of the photos. I am new to the digital world, so I am not sure what actions to take with Photoshop 7.0 that would allow me to minimize the glare.

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,

Wendy Wyffels-Wilson
Wilson's Photographic Images

[jeaniesa]

Hi Wendy, WELCOME to RetouchPro!

It sounds like not all of the images have the glare. In that case, I would select the glasses WITHOUT the glare and copy them on top of the ones with the glare. Is that possible, or am I misunderstanding the situation? You'll want to use a soft edge on the selection - and probably a layer mask to get the edge blending just right. In addition, you might need to transform the selection to make it larger/smaller as necessary when moving the selection into the picture with the glare. If you change the eyeglass layer to the difference blending mode, you'll be able to see when they line up. It won't be perfect, but it should be good enough. Depending on the lighting conditions of the different photos, you may also need to adjust the colors.

Good luck and please don't hesitate to ask more questions if you need any more details on anything I mentioned above. I'm not sure what your level of knowledge is, so not sure how much detail you need.

Jeanie

[W3Images]

Thanks!! But still need help!!

Thanks for the quick reply!! Sorry to say, I have not yet become a master of Photoshop 7. Many of the techniques you mentioned, I not exactly sure how to accomplish them. I guess what I am saying is - I need more detailed instructions. I have used layers to help with shadow removal. I really wish I had a better grip on all the tools Photoshop offers!!

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,

Wendy Wyffels-Wilson

[john_opitz]

Adding to the above. And reading the problem you have with glare in glasses and shadow problems in pictures. This will not solve your problems you already have, with those pictures. But in the future, when taking pictures at weddings, try using your flash above your camera lens. You can accomplish this by using a camera bracket(made for 35mm,21/4, and digital cameras) to mount the flash head on. Strobeframe is one company that makes them, as well as others. The top mounted flash(mounted high,above the lens) will cast your shadows down and to the back of your subjects, as well as reducing red eye in low light(dark indoors and out) pictures. As well as helping you with the glare in those glasses. You get a lot of those side shadows and glare in pictures from side mounted flash brackets and cameras that have the flash directly mounted(and to the left of the lens)on the camera. You have to remember one thing when using a bracket. You will have to purchase the cord for that model flash,when working off the cameras hot shoe with it. And a seperate power supply(tubro battery) for that flash head. Don't use the flash heads internal power supply. You don't get the recycling time and the number of flashes like you do from the gel cells and/or tubro batteries.

[john_opitz]

One other thing on the brackets. I..........this is me now. I like the brackets that pivits the camera.....Not the flash head. So......Me tilting the camera(vert.). I still have that flash directly over the lens.

[CJ Swartz]

Wendy - welcome!

From what you've said and what's listed on your profile, you're serious about learning Pshop and are just in the early learning stages -- you're in a good place to learn and practice.

Now, for your specific problem photos:

1. uploading a sample image (low resolution - file no bigger than 100kb) -- this would help us see what the specific problem is, and which solutions might work best. It would help us see how much of their eye shows through and around the glare, etc.

2. There are different ways to solve the same problem with Photoshop - some require more knowledge of more functions than you may know right now -- that means that you will have the fun of learning them later.

3. If you can get step by step instructions from Jeanie -- get them! She's excellent. You may need to give her some more info for her to tailor her instructions for you.

4. Here's a technique that can help that doesn't require many steps -- try it and see if works for your photos.

Open your image
Duplicate the original layer
Working on the duplicate layer, look at the eye with the glare -- is part of it over the skin ABOVE the eye or next to the eye? If the glare is over a skin area, use the eyedropper tool to sample the color of the skin around the eye -- this color now shows up in the color pallette. Choose a small brush that can fit just inside the glare area -- set the brush to Luminosity Blend at a low opacity - about 20%. This lets you layer the color on a bit at a time and not overdo it. This will greatly reduce the glare but let it show a bit. Depending on the size of your images, it may be all you need.

This is just one way, and it probably is easier for you to do today. If you can learn Jeanie's steps or someone else's today -- do it. If not today -- you can learn them next month and use them the next time you need them. If you follow John's tips, you may not need it again. (You can also ask people to take their glasses off in some situations - weddings are more difficult to manage than portrait settings, of course. )

[SkunkyMonk]

Wendy,

Like CJ said, you should upload the pix so we can see how bad, or what the problem is.
I, myself, just finished a course in Photoshop at the New School, here in NYC and love working on photo's with problems like the one you just described, sounds to me like a job for the "clone/stamp tool" -that's providing there's enough of the eye showing ...
I've actually taken a right eye, selected it with the "polygon lasso tool", cut it, pasted it on a separate layer and flipped it, transformed it for size and was amazed how well it fit over the problem left eye, and matched. Of course, your subject must be, pretty much looking straight on.
It just occurred to me, I think you might be able to flip the entire pix onto a separate layer and clone from one layer onto the other...

Let me know...

JON

[jeaniesa]

Hi Wendy,

John had some great suggestions to help reduce/remove eyeglass glare in the future. But you've got these pictures now that you have to work with. I'll do my best to explain details. If I still lose you, don't hesitate to say so and I'll either break it down more or try to point you to other references that explain things a little differently. And like CJ and Jon said, if you can upload a sample image of the problem (and one without), that would really help us tailor our suggestions to your specific problem. (And if you can't because of privacy issues with your clients, I understand that too.)

My suggestions assume that you have some photos of the same person/people both with and without the glare. If you don't have any without the glare, please let me know because you'll need to use a different technique (such as flipping the right eye to paste on the left, etc.)

So, let's assume photo A is the photo with the eyeglass glare and photo B is the photo without the glare. The two photos should have the angle of the face about the same. If they don't that's a bit more tricky and I'll need to think about it some more.

Using the lasso tool, make a rough selection around the eyeglasses in photo B. This does not need to be a neat or exact selection. In fact, it's best if you give yourself a bunch of "extra" around the edge of the glasses. Don't worry about feathering the selection ; we'll take care of that later.

Using the move tool, drag the portion of photo B that you've selected onto photo A. It probably won't be place exactly where you want it, so you'll need to move it some more to the approximate position in photo A. I.e., you want to move the eyes/glasses with no glare OVER the eyes/glasses with glare.

Now, change the layer blending mode of the "no glare" layer to Difference. (Use the pulldown list at the top of the layers palette.) Then move the "no glare" layer a little more (you can use the arrow keys to move a pixel at a time if you have the move tool selected) until the "no glare" layer has as much black as possible. (The Difference mode will show you were the pixels are different. So, if you line up the eyes as closely as possible, there won't be too many pixels that are different - thus it will look mostly black.)

If the size of the heads is different, you'll need to adjust the size of the "no glare" layer using Edit->Transform->Scale. If you do this, make sure that you hold the Shift key down while you drag the corners in order the keep the aspect ration the same. You may need to move/nudge the "no glare" layer again after you've transformed it to get it to line up correctly.

Once you've got the layer lined up as best you can, change the blending mode back to normal. Now, add a layer mask so the "no glare" layer. You can do this with Layer->Add Layer Mask->Reveal All. Select the Paintbrush tool and make sure the foreground color is black. (When painting on a layer mask, black will have the effect of "erasing" the layer. Painting with white will undo the erase.) Using a brush with a soft edge, start to paint away the sharp edges of the "no glare" layer. If you have everything lined up, the edges should start to appear as though they blend together. If you go too far and some of the glare starts to show through from underneath, then simply change the foreground color to white and paint back over the area to bring back the "no glare" image.

This should work nicely, unless of course photo A and photo B were taken in different lighting conditions. If that's the case, then you'll need to adjust the color balance of the "no glare" layer to match the skin tones in photo A. Hopefully you can do this by eye using a color balance adjustment layer. (Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Color Balance...) Color Balance let's you select whether you're working on the shadows, midtones or highlights of an image - and adjust the RGB values for each. If the color tones are the same but one is darker than another, you will need to lighten/darken the "no glare" layer to match the one underneath. the simplest way do do that is Contrast/Brightness. However, that is also the least flexible and may not produce the results you want. (If it does, great. If not, we'll have to get into curves. So, try that first and if it doesn't work, I'll try to help with curves. I don't want to overwhelm you with too much info, though I'm afraid I might have already done that!)

Hope this helps get you started. Be sure to let us know if/where you get stuck so we can help you figure things out. And if you can upload sample pictures, we can play with it ourselves and give you the exact steps we used to achieve our results. Just be sure whatever you upload is less than 100KB. If you want to upload more than one image, you'll have to do that in separate posts, as you can only upload one image per post.

Good luck!
Jeanie

[BigAl]

Wendy, I suggest you get hold of Katrin Eismann's book. She has a section on reducing (or removing) eyeglass glare. The book is a must for anyone interested in photo restoration or retouching.

[W3Images]

WOW!! Thanks for all your expert advice. I have attached a copy of the problem picture so you can see what I am dealing with. I will give each one of your tips to see what I can do. You are right when you say I am a novice, but very willing to learn. Any seminars/books that would be a great asset would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Wendy

[SkunkyMonk]

Re: HELP! eyeglass glare, WENDY

.

[jeaniesa]

Jon,
Your attachment didn't attach. Please double check the size of the file to be sure it's under 100KB and try uploading again.


Wendy, Do you have another picture of the bride without the glare? That would give us more options to work with.


Thanks,
Jeanie

[SkunkyMonk]

TRYing to upload attachment again.

Hey Wendy,

I downloaded your wedding Pix and after seeing the glare problem, thought there was really nothing I could contribute or do, but I had to give it a shot. Well, have a look, I did all the repairs with the eyedropper, paint brush, opacity & fill controls and the burn & dodge tools. (I only worked on the glasses/eyes)

Jon

>>>>Jeanie, CJ, Members,

Would really appreciate any feedback...

Thanks all,
Jon

[jeaniesa]

Jon,

After playing with this for a few minutes, my hat is off to you Jon! Truth be told, when I looked at your fix at first, my feeling was that her right eye (the one we see on the left in the picture) looked a little "muddy" (for lack of a better term). But, after trying to fix this myself without having another photo to work with, I've decided your version looks just fine!

Wendy, This is a really tough fix without having another photo to give you the information which has been obliterated by the glare. Do you have one or is this all you have to work with?

Also, this photo has a lot of JPEG artifacting. I'm hoping that's just because you had to save at a low quality to get under the 100KB limit. Otherwise, that's something else you're going to have to fix as well.

Jeanie

[GOLDCOIN]

My very BEST for all the years to come......

You both will always carry your heart picture of this glorious day...
so don't let this small mishap spoil ...