Fixing White/Red Eye

[Doug Nelson]

By Carol Carlin on Tuesday, May 01, 2001 - 12:10 pm:

Can someone help me with how to fix white eye in a photo? It is a photo of a dog and both eyes are bright white with nothing natural to go on. I am a novice user of photoshop 5.5 .


By Doug Nelson (doug) on Tuesday, May 01, 2001 - 01:14 pm:

Redeye (or in this case white-eye) is a reflection through the pupil on the retina. Since pupils are black, you can usually simply paint over with black (or dark grey for images with no true black)

If it looks fake, lighten the grey a bit and soften the edges with blur tool

There are many other ways, this is just a simple one. Hopefully others will add their favorite technique

[Jakaleena]

This thread seemed worthy of revival. I see this question asked a lot on Usenet, and thought you all might have some favorite tips and tricks for dealing with it

[Guest]

PSP 7 has a tool specifically for redeye. It is an excellent tool and has presets for water, fruit, and many other things.
It also works for coloring eyes for retouch or painting.
I use it all the time, and it is supperior to anything PS or any other proggy has.

[T Paul]

Using channels to eliminate red eye

There are numerous methods, but here is one using channels:

Step one:
Open the image you wish to correct in Photoshop and set the mode to RGB Color. Zoom in until you can easily select the pupil of the eyes.

Step two:
Using the ellipse selection tool, make a selection of one of the pupils, making sure all of the red eye is inside your selection. Hold down the shift key and select the other eye. If you are correcting a creature with multiple eyes, continue until all eyes are selected.

Step three:
Open the channels folder and select the Blue channel.

Step four:
Copy the Blue channel.

Step five:
Now select the Red channel.

Step six:
Paste your selection into the Red channel.

Step seven:
Switch back to RGB and deselect. The information in the blue channel has now been copied over the information in the red channel within the selection. The red-eye is eliminated. An action can easily be created from these steps to speed up this process.

[OhThatGirl2001]

I agree with Greg,

I rarely use Paintshop Pro anymore but whenever I'm given a picture of a cat or dog to be fixed - I jump on over to Paintshop Pro and use their Red Eye Fix. You chose whether it's a human eye or an animal eye. I first add a new layer and then use the adjustment. That way if the pupil shape is slightly oblong or larger you can erase those area.

Start by going to Effects - Enhance Photo - Red Eye Removal - Auto Animal Eye. Then you can choose the eye color, glint size and number etc. It's wonderful.

I have a friend that regularly sends me his cats pictures and asks me to fix them. I must do 4 a month!

Lisa

[Guest]

or you could teach your friend to take pictures.

[OhThatGirl2001]

Actually, I once read a thread (it may even be posted here about cat and dogs eyes and why they are difficult to photograph). It has something to do with the reflective pigement membrane needed for night time vision.

Anyhow, here is a neat link that explains why and how to fix it.

http://www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/red-eye.htm

Hmmmm....Must make a note to myself to copy my friend with the cat in on! LOL

Lisa

[T Paul]

Two More PhotoShop Methods

The Fast Way
Select the portion of the eye that is red with the circle tool, then hold down the shift key to select the red part of the other eye. The go to Hue & Saturation, select red, then desaturate it. The red is now gone. You can then shift the hue to make it whatever color you want.


A bit More Detailed Method

1. Magnify eye.
2. Draw a circle or ellipse around the red (not in it).
3. Use >select>feather to put a feather on the red area. Size of feather will depend on size of eye. Try starting with 5 pixels.
4. Use eyedropper to sample the pupil colour if any available - otherwise select an appropriate dark brown as your foreground colour. Use paint bucket to fill red part with dark brown.
5. Use >filter >noise > add noise to put a little bit of texture into the flat dark brown you have just filled with.
6. Draw a very small circle in the middle of the pupil and feather as in 3.
7. select white as your foreground colour and bucket it into the cirlce to create a catchlight. Add noise to catchlight as in 5.

All done.

[Guest]

Challenge Idea. Someone post a pic of the worst red eye anyone has ever seen(yes, even worse than Jerry Garcias) then we all take it, fixe it and repost.
There should be a time limit, but no way to do that.

[gbdurfee]

PS 7

I tried several of your suggestions and can't even recall what I liked best - I think perhaps lasso the area and correct levels. What I would like to inquire about is the tool that is supposed to be in PS 7 - where it is and how is it to be used? I searched the help and could find nothing under red eye, etc. Thanks.

[jeaniesa]

Gail, I think you're referring to fugitive's comment that "PSP 7 has a tool specifically for redeye." Please note that's "PSP" as in "Paint Shop Pro", not "PS" as in "Photoshop."
(BTW, Adobe PhotoDeluxe also has a pretty easy red-eye correction tool.)
Jeanie

[OhThatGirl2001]

Hi Gail,

I generally use a method I learned years ago that uses the channel mixer.

I select the area with the eclipse lasso tool and then go to New Adjustment Layer and choose Channel Mixer. I start with the red channel which in most cases, is the problem. I move the slider from 100 on red to 0. Then the green channel 50% and blue 50%. You can adjust this depending on whether the color may be a little more green or blue. Remember that the total percent must always equal 100%. Doing this on an adjustment layer always you to erase areas you may have gone over.

As far as Paintshop Pro.... I'm using Paintshop Pro 7. I open the image and go to Effects, then drop down menu to Enhance Photo.
The drop down menu at the bottom has Red Eye Removal.

Let me know if you need any more help.

Cheers,
Lisa

[DannyRaphael]

Plan D

If you have images of other animals whose eyes are "OK," another possiblity would be to select / copy a "good eye" from Dog pic A and paste it onto a new layer in Dog Pic B.

Size accordingly and blend with the rest of the image using a layer mask and, if necessary, a levels adjustment layer.

If you need both eyes fixed, you could repeat the process, retrieving the other eye from Dog Pic A

-or-

duplicate the "imported eye" layer in Dog Pic B, select the eye (CTRL+click the layer name), flip it on the horizontal plane, then drag into position over the 'other' bad eye. Blend as needed.

~DannyR~

[gbdurfee]

critique on red eye fix

6-18-02
I tried many of the methods and thank all for the options (one had to do with dragging the red channel or layer into the blue or vice versa but it ended up doing something goofy – I ended up using the lasso and doing something, I found a red eye fix in another program, but not as good as your suggestions. I am presenting b4 and aft for critique – these are also part of info I needed ideas from on the link for extraction (which PS7 has the nice extraction tool and Jak gave me a nice way to touch up after). I would like to feather a square? vingette out around them, but ended up with a white one when I used the vingette ‘action’. Mostly can’t remember how I did something if I did it long ago – but now I am making my own notebook with the helps that work best for me. Also, is there a place that has ‘stock’ photo’s of just normal stuff (not for sale) and/or a link to locate such. Or a thread in here that addresses using such for repairs – like someone said they kept pics they could find of eyeballs, I need a semi truck fender, etc. So many things, so little knowledge (so far, tooooo many so’s).

[gbdurfee]

P.S.

Here is the Wilks Orig with red eye and before extracted, etc.