Photo retouching

Photo retouching the eyes is a way to improve a portrait. This is a technique I picked up along the photo restoration and retouching road.

Above are some eyes from a portrait from Michael Herb at 204Studios. The eyes that need photo retouching have a round studio flash reflected in them. Some say this is attractive and softens the eyes but to some this look is very artificial and is a dead give away that the shot was taken in a studio. Maybe you want to add your own reflection in the eye that suits your style or location? I have included a layers snap shot of a process to change them.

The bottom layer has the reflection removed. The layer above “whites”, is a soft white brush sprayed in the whites of the eye and then reduced in opacity and masked. this softens the whites.

The “reflection” layer is a single dab of white masked to make a triangular-shaped reflection.

Above that is a small white dot, which simulates the main point of light.

Next up is a colour layer to add more of a warm hue to eyes with the centre pupil masked out.

Finally a splash of red also reduced on opacity in the corners of the eyes to remove the grey look and warm up the eyes some more.

The very top layer is just the original so we can refer back to it to see the changes we made.

You would then set about retouching the face and skin in your usual way. I hope this photo retouching eyes article helped you.

Neil

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