Using Photoshop to Eliminate Red Eye in Your Child’s Photographs

My nine-year-old daughter recently had a staring role in a school presentation. Of course I wanted to take family snapshots to remember the moment. So packed up my camera and went to her play … along with 700 other parents. I wasn’t expecting portrait quality shots. After all my five year-old was tugging on my sleeve, I was using a telephoto lens and lighting was dim. On top of that the camera was set to auto which caused the flash to fire with every shot and led to … you guessed it … red eye. Thank goodness for post-processing. These may not be professional quality photos but I still don’t want red eye in my family album.

What causes red eye? It’s light reflecting off the blood vessels in the back of the eye. Red eye occurs more often in low light because the pupils are wide open. It also occurs more often when the flash is very close to the camera lens. Ideally we’d all avoid red eye in the first place. But, as in the example above, there are times it can’t be avoided.

Fortunately there are hundreds of ways to use photoshop to eliminate red eye, including the red eye tool. In my hands, however, the red eye tool produces less than satisfactory results. Instead I prefer to use the following method:

First open the photograph in question:
Photograph with red eye
Now open this same photograph in a new window (Window –>Arrange–>New Window).
Opening a New Window in Photoshop

Now separate the two windows so they can both be seen on your screen. Finally use the zoom tool to zoom in on the red eyes in one of the photographs. Now you’ll be able to monitor your red eye changes both close up and in your full photograph.

Two Windows of the Same Photograph
Open your channels palette (Windows –> Channels). Click on the different channel colors and look for the best pupil (either green or blue). The best pupil is typically the darkest.
Channels Palette
Now use your elliptical marque tool to highlight the pupils (hold down the shift key between pupils to highlight them both). Make sure the anti-alias box is checked and add a value of 1 for the feather (both found along the top tool bar).
Pupils Selected with Elliptical Marquee Tool
Now click on your selected color channel and copy the pupils (Edit–>Copy). Then click on each of the remaining two color channels and paste the pupils (Edit –> Paste). Finally click on the RGB channel and you’ll see your changes both close up and in the full photograph. This technique is nice because it preserves the highlights of the eyes while eliminating the redness.

After Red Eye Removal

If the pupils still appear too light you can use the burn tool set at midtones and a low opacity (approximately 20%) to further darken the pupils.
Sit back and enjoy your new and improved photograph!
Photograph after Red Eye Removal