Eye Correction Tutorial

A few days ago I said I would do a step by step tutorial on how to edit eyes. I finally had a few minutes to make the tutorial. So, here we go...

 This is my original image...SOOC (with a few minor edits in it's RAW format). 

Before I started this tutorial, I added a few edits.  I evened the skin tones, and brightened them a little to get rid of the harsh shadow across his face.

We will start off by darkening the pupils.  First you want to duplicate the background layer.  You can do this with a keyboard shortcut.  Hit CTRL and  J.  Once you've done that you will want to go under where it says normal and change it to Soft Light.  This makes the image darker, but we only want the pupils darker.  If you hit ATL and click on layer mask at the same time it gives you a black layer mask taking the image back to what it looked like before you added this layer.  Once that's done, you'll choose the brush tool set it to white, and on your mask layer color the pupils.  You'll notice the pupils get darker.  

Next we will be giving the iris a darker ring around the whites of his eyes.  You will select the circle marquee tool and select the iris.  Do this with both eyes. 

Once you have both of the iris selected you will go to Select-Modify-Feather.  Once you click that set the feather amount at a low number.  I used 2 for this tutorial, but on images that are closer up, I use a slightly higher feather.  Once you've done this your eyes will still be selected, so do not deselect them yet. If for some reason you do, just go backwards, or use the keyboard shortcute CTRL, ALT, Z. 

With the eyes still selected, we want to add a levels layer. 

Then lets change the levels layer to multiply.  This will darken everything that has been selected, but don't worry we will be fixing that.   You will notice that once you have chosen the levels layer, that your eyes are no longer selected.  Let's get them reselected again.  There is a quick way of doing this if you know your way around photoshop.  While holding CTRL click on the levels mask.  TaDa!  

Now we will go back into Select-Modify, but this time we want to choose Contrast.  Again choose a lower number.  This decides how thick of a  rim you want around your iris.  For this image I decided to go with 4.  Again this number will vary depending on the image. Once you've clicked okay you should notice that your circles got slightly smaller.  Now that you have the rim, hit the backspace bar, and this should remove the dark color on the rest of the eyes.  You will now only have a dark rim left.  If you notice I had part of the skin selected, and it does not look natural anymore.  I went to my brush tool and selected black.  I then went to my levels mask and colored over the parts of the circle I did not want showing such as the areas on the skin. 

For this step I am adding some light to the bottom of the iris.  I chose my circle marquee tool and selected the iris of each eye again. If you notice under my layers I have colored the white on a new empty layer.  It is important that this is done on it's own layer. 

I then made a new circle that included most of the white leaving me with only a semi circle.  I then hit the backspace getting rid of the extra white. 

Once I had the amount of white I was happy with I then went to Filter-Blur-Gaussian and chose a small amount of blur to soften the edges of the white. 

Next I changed the layer to Soft Light, and depending on the image changed the opacity. Once that is completed, you have transformed the look of the iris.  Now it's times to focus on the whites of the eyes.

First I created a new layer by hitting CTRL-ATL-SHIFT-E.  Once I had my new layer I changed it from normal to screen.  This will majorly brighten your image. 

I only want to brighten the whites of his eyes, so I added a layers mask.  I mentioned the shortcut earlier, but if you forgot then hold ATL while clicking the layers mask button.  Now use the brush tool set to white and color his eyes on the mask.  You will notice that it is unnaturally bright, so just lower the opacity until you have it to a point that it looks natural. 

And here's the image with all of the eye edits. 

I hope you found this tutorial helpful!  Of course I cannot leave an image just slightly edited, so I finished the edits for it... 

I have been playing around with different editing techniques, and today figured out how to give an image a true matte effect.  I have always loved ordering my pictures with a metallic matte finish, but I never knew how to do it.  This just goes to show that you can always learn something new, and you should never be afraid to just play around in photoshop!  

I loved this image so much, I decided to to add a texture to it.

And now I transformed it into black and white...

I want to thank my little model for posing for me! I also wanna thank his momma for allowing me to photograph him!  Dorian is such a sweetie, and he loves the camera!  He was having a blast being in the spot light!


Also I want to mention that I learned this technique from Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers using Photoshop by Scott Kelby.  There are tons of wonderful editing techniques in this book.  If you are really wanting to expand your knowledge of editing, I highly recommend this book!