How to Remove Red Eye from Photos

Posted on July 15th, 2009 by Elaine

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Just when you thought your photo was perfect, you examine it and realize that you’ve got red eye. This occurs because of poor lighting and using a flash when taking a photo. Red eye dilemma is very common, but it can be solved with the help of a photo editing program.

What You’ll Need:

Computer
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Image with red eye
Camera with USB cable

Using Regular Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is one of the most famous photo editing and drawing software today. If you know how to use it the right way, you can fix that red eye problem without any trouble.

Transfer your image to the PC. If it’s still in the digital camera, use a USB cable to connect the camera to the PC and transfer. Put it in a folder where you can locate it easily. When it’s transferred, open the photo in Adobe Photoshop.
Go to Image, then Duplicate. Close the original photo.
If you’re using Photoshop 6 or an older version, go to View, then click on New View. If it’s a newer version, go to Windows, then choose Documents and click on New Window. A duplicate window with the same image will be opened.
Use the Zoom tool to zoom in one of the two windows, so you can see, the eyes as big as possible. Keep the other window at a 100% view.
Arrange the two windows in such as way that you can see and access them at the same time.
Make a new layer.
Go to the eyedropper tool and pick up a color from the iris. Pick a fairly gray tint, with a slight hint of the normal eye color.
Use the Paint tool to paint over the red eye on the new layer you created. Be very careful with this step, so you won’t accidentally paint over the lids.
Go to Filters, then click on Blur. Choose Gaussian and give your photo a blur of 1 pixel, to soften its edges.
Set the mode of your layer blend to Saturation. This takes the red out, but doesn’t remove the highlights. In numerous cases, it leaves the eye hollow-looking and grayish. If it does, duplicate your saturation layer and change your blend mode to just Hue. This brings back some of the color.
If the color becomes too strong, though, lower the Hue layer’s opacity.
Merge the extra layers down when you’re done.

Using Adobe Photoshop Elements

Compared to the regular Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements contains fewer and simpler options, making it easier to edit images. Here’s how to get rid of red eye using this program.

Method One

Pick the red eye tool from the Tool palette found at the image left side. This lets you select a rectangular area, and apply the reduction to just that portion. It will work great if you want to apply a separate red eye adjustment to each of the image’s area. Remember to zoom inn the image before you select. This gives you a better control over the image to be edited, and helps you make sure both eyes are corrected.

Method Two

Go to Quick Edit mode, then select Red Eye Fix. This will scan the entire image and remove the red eye automatically. You can move the slider adjustment, so you can adjust how well the red is removed. This helps you control how the photo looks. If you have a big batch of photos with red eye, just open them and apply the automatic adjustment mode. This will take care of all the problem, at one time.

Unless you’re trying to look like a robot from the latest Transformers movie, having red eye in photos is annoying. Try to solve it by using these methods, and make your eyes go back to their natural, lovely color.