HOW TO RETOUCH EYES IN PHOTOSHOP (WITHOUT SHARPENING)

I am often asked how I emphasize eyes in my portraits. We are all taught that in a portrait the eyes are what draw the attention of the viewer. So how do we achieve this and still make it look natural. Well, the answer lies in the detail and the attention that needs to be given.

 

Some tutorials promote the use of sharpening which might be fine if properly done but if over done or set against over blurring of the face just makes everything look exaggerated. For me this is about the worst thing you can do.

In another blog I will deal with how I tackle skin smoothing and toning, which only must be done selectively, but for the time being here is my workflow for the eyes.

First, make sure you have a correctly exposed image in camera. I don’t use spot metering for this, but centre metering would be fine. And, of course, the lighting should be enough to get a good exposure with catchlights showing.

Loaded into Photoshop the process is as follows (note I have a number of actions set up to help speed it up and this is always advisable).

The whites of the eyes (which are in reality off-white, sometimes cream, with different shading across the area, and often with some veins showing.)

• Add a new layer on top of the image by going to Layer-New and calling it Eye Whites.
• Expand the image to 100% and examine for colour, shading and any veins or marks.
• Take the Clone Stamp Tool, set the brush mode to Lighten (clones out only parts darker than the sample area), the Hardness slider mid-way, and Opacity about 20%.
• To remove veins or other darker marks set the brush size to the width of the vein or mark, sample from alongside it and brush along the marks until gone. Any overly light marks do the same but with the brush mode set to Darken. Any dark cream areas or greatly contrasted areas repeat with the brush mode at Lighten sampling from adjacent areas but don’t overdo it because you must still show some variable shading across the whites of the eyes.

 The Irises (emphasizing colour and contrast)

• Add a second layer and call it Dodge and Burn Irises.
• Fill it with 50% Gray by going to Edit-Fill and in the Contents Use drop down box select 50% Gray. Set the mode of the layer to Soft Light.
• Expand image to 100%
• Take the Burn Tool, set the Range to midtones, the brush opacity to about 6% and medium soft hardness again, and gradually darken the outside rim of the iris and also just around the centre. Sometimes the lower half is darker than the upper half.
• Similarly, change to the Dodge Tool, and with the same settings as for the Burn Tool lighten the inner coloured part to bring out the colour of the eyes and give it a boost.
• If any of this is overdone then use the Eraser Tool at about 6% opacity and gradually reduce back.

 make the eyes gleam

• Expand image to 100%
• Take the Lasso Tool and select around the eye in full.
• Add a Curves Adjustment layer by going to the “create adjustment layer” symbol at the bottom of the Layers Panel (it is a half shaded circle) and click on curves in the list.
• Use the curve to raise the lightness of the eyes and lift the catchlights by giving a little contrast. Remember, the upper part of the curve adjusts the lighter contrast and the lower part of the curve the darker parts. Only small adjustments are needed because we don’t want the eyes to look like headlights. Start by lifting the middle of the Curves line up a little to give an overall gleam and then adjust in very small parts the lighter or darker parts.
• Click on the mask of the Curves Adjustment layer and with a hard brush set to Black at about 50% opacity go around the rims of the eyes to take off any overhang caused by the Curves adjustment.

 Eye Lashes

If the eyes have mascara applied or where there are long eye lashes:-

• Expand image to 100%
• Add a Dodge and Burn layer as when we did the irises by adding a layer filled with 50% Gray and set to Soft Light and using the Burn Tool with a brush setting of 6% opacity to darken around the rims to emphasize eye lashes and where mascara has been applied.

 Eye Shadows (highlight colouring and shading)

Over the eyelids where eye shadow may have been applied or just to give some shadow emphasis

• Expand image to 100%
• Add another Dodge and Burn Layer, again filled with 50% Gray and set to Soft light
• Take the Dodge and Burn Tools at an opacity of round 6% dodge and burn the area above the eyes and below the eye brows to emphasize shade and colouring.
• Further, by adding another layer and using the Brush Tool with a colour setting of your choice, at a low opacity setting and a soft brush apply colouring over the eye shadow area to add or even change colouring.
• Sometimes I might put a small amount of blur onto the layer to smooth things over by going to Filter-Blur-Gaussian Blur

 Eye Brows

If the eyebrows are untidy

• Expand the image to 100%
• Take the Clone Tool set the mode to Lighten, Hardness at around 75% and Opacity at 20% and sampling from the skin closest to the eyebrow tidy the edge and any stray bits.
• If there is any uneven thickness of the eyebrow or uneven colouring use the Clone Tool again switching between Lighten and Darken modes to thicken its appearance.

There may be other bits depending on the image such as if the rims of the eyelids show too much redness but this is the sort of detail, which I believe is necessary if you want to bring out the strength of the eyes and engage with the viewer.

Please follow this blog for more of my workflow.