we're going to look at how you do with
problem red eye in Photoshop the kind of
red eye that can't be fixed with the
normal automatic red eye removal tool
which works pretty well most the time on
people but there are some cases where it
won't and on animals it doesn't so we're
going to look at the tough cases so
first I'm going to duplicate my layer
with command J which I like to do
because I don't like to work on my
background layer and we're going to zoom
in a little bit to get a look at these
eyes now normally you would be able to
just use the automatic red eye removal
tool which is here it's on the little
panel with the Spot Healing Brush red
eye tool and you just come in and you
would click in here and Photoshop would
fix it and it would look fine but in
this case there's this extra weird
little highlight because of this hot
spot in the red eye and it just doesn't
look doesn't look right it's not it's
better but it doesn't look quite right
so we're going to undo that and we're
going to do it the serious way we're
going to select to the red part of the
eye the pupil and there are a couple of
ways I could do that you could get the
magic wand and come in and start
clicking to get all the little pieces of
it but when you have the whole pupil
visible like we do here I prefer to do
it a simpler way so I'm going to undo
that and I'm going to pick the
elliptical marquee tool right here and
I'm just going to trace a circle around
the part that I want right there and I'm
going to zoom in a little more so I've
got the whole pupil circled and I don't
want to wipe out the highlight in the
eye so I want to unselect that and I'm
going to do that by getting the magic
wand tool and I'm just going to hold alt
while I click in that highlight to
deselect it with alt held that D selects
so now I don't got it selected as this
donut shape here that I want to recolor
so first thing we want to do is
desaturate the color so it has no red
there's a number of ways we could do
that but the quick way is to use the
keyboard shortcut which on the Mac is
command shift U on a PC it's control
shift you and I think of you as
unsaturated and that just takes the
color out so
the colors gone all we need to do is
darken it now we could use the burn tool
which would be just fine but in this
case I'm going to use the paintbrush
with black which will have approximately
the same effect so I'm going to ub4 my
brush make sure my foreground color is
set to black set my opacity pretty low
like 20% here and then I'm just going to
paint in here and I don't want to go
black I just want to get a dark gray
because people's usually don't look
totally black and I'm just going to kind
of paint around in here until I get try
to get it as even as I can get rid of
that hot spot and get it to a good dark
gray and then I'm going to deselect and
go back out see how that looks
yep that looks good so now I just need
to do the same to the other eye and that
looks like it's a nice dark gray so I
will deselect and zoom back out and that
looks perfect now we're going to look at
pets because the automatic red eye tool
almost never works on animals because
their eyes turn weird colors green like
Leo here or sometimes purple or yellow
so we're going to fix this guy up with a
different little trick and the first
thing we want to do is we're going to
paint to desaturate the eye and we're
going to do that by getting the
paintbrush and we're going to make sure
the brush mode is set to color up here
in this little drop-down this long list
pick color and make sure our foreground
color is set to black and our opacity is
100% by painting in this mode we're
going to be able to desaturate the eye
so you can see as I paint in here it
just takes the green takes the green out
and it's turning it gray and it leaves
the highlight intact it doesn't change
anything about the dark around the edges
of the eye so you don't have to be super
careful
it keeps the keeps this sort of shape of
the eye there so we're just going to
desaturate by painting in this mode
now we got both eyes desaturated now we
just need to darken it and in this case
I'm going to use the burn tool so I'm
going to select the burn tool there and
I'm going to burn the mid-tones make
sure it's mid-tones that are selected
here because we don't want to touch that
highlight and we don't want to touch the
black around the edge of the eye I just
want to darken this middle gray that's
in there so I'm going to set my exposure
you know somewhere around 20% and then
I'm just going to come in here start
burning this down until it gets nice and
dark gray again we don't want it to be
black and I'm not going to worry that
there's kind of a little rim around the
edge because that actually looks a
little more natural it shows that
there's some shape to the eye if you
just make this thing a totally black
bowling ball it doesn't look like a real
eye anymore
so I'm just going to kind of paint
around get what I can kind of let it
leave what it doesn't want to do if I
had some bright spots I'd switch over
and burn some highlights but this is a
pretty even middle gray there we go and
of course that technique is not just for
animals that works great on people too
okay one more example with a couple of
cats who have some more variations of
red eye green eye purple eye going on
here so zoom in and do the guy on the
left first I'm going to duplicate my
background layer so I'm not working on
the background and I'm going to grab my
brush make sure my brush is in color
mode because we're going to treat this
guy the way we did the dog I'm going to
paint in here to desaturate first by
using the brush in color mode turning
his pupil gray and sometimes you'll see
that the color has kind of spilled off
onto his fur which it did here so I'm
just desaturating out there too since
he's kind of a grey cat anyway now if
you had a person or an animal who wasn't
very gray you might have to use the
clone stamp tool to get rid of some
where it's spilled off like that in this
case I'll just clean up a little bit
where the color spilled out of bounds so
after desaturating it we get the burn
tool to darken it and here's how I
choose whether to use the burn tool or
the paintbrush if there's detail that I
want to keep I use the
learn to like here we have that
highlight in the eye and kind of a
gradient that shows the shape of the eye
it's easier to keep that with the burn
tool
there's detail that I want to destroy I
would use the paintbrush as I did in the
first example with the girl with the red
eye because they're the detail was not
real detail of I was artifacts to the
red eye and it's easier to destroy it
using a paintbrush so that's how I
choose which one so I won't make you
watch me do the other eye
I'll just do it quickly and then skip to
the other cat okay now he's looking good
so let's do the other cat it's a whole
different whole different kind of
scenario here this guy his pupils are
totally blown out there's no detail left
there to work with it also we basically
are going to have to paint here and
before I get painting on the pupil
though I'm going to take my brush once
again in color mode because I see I've
got I've got color that has spilled
outside spilled outside his eye here so
I want to desaturate some of that where
it's gone out there just clean that up
just a little bit off his fur and then
I'm going to go ahead and desaturate the
pupil too because we don't want that
extraneous color making out any harder
so now I'm going to take the paint brush
make sure my foreground color is set to
black down here oops I didn't need to
click that and get my brush I'm going to
set the opacity around 50% I'm going to
switch the brush mode out of color mode
just back to normal
let it be a normal paint brush I'm going
to make it small and I'm just going to
zoom in a little more so you can see
this a little better and just paint in
here until I get this to a nice dark
gray give him a dark gray pupil
because in this case his pupil was
basically lost totally blown out there
was nothing to work with there so we
have to create one over on the other
side making to brush him a little
smaller just come in here
give him some black wear that I was
totally blown out back out a little bit
so that looks alright normally with this
smaller piece of pupil showing I
wouldn't worry about putting a highlight
in here but in this case we've got this
other cat in the shot as highlights in
his eyes from the flash and it might
look a little weird if this one doesn't
so I'll show you how we do that I just
go in on this eye and I'll switch my
paint color to white by clicking that
and I'll leave the opacity where it is
and take a real little brush maybe about
this size and just put a little click in
here maybe two or three and now he's got
a little highlight to match the other
guy so there you go you've got several
different techniques there and even with
really difficult redeye by trying some
combination of these techniques you can
probably solve just about any redeye
problem that you've got
you