When preparing a headshot, I usually spend a considerable amount of time on the eyes. The eyes are the focus of a portrait, are they not? Unless my subject has unusually clear eyes and the lighting is perfect, most eyes need some retouching. Because in most situations your light will not be perfect, eyes appear darker than they really are. Some retouching and brightening will make a huge difference in the final image. So here's how I do it: You might remember this image of Carly. I used it for my tutorial "how I retouch". I'm going to use it again to demonstrate eye retouching. Here is the original, unretouched image.
(1) I first use the patch tool to clone out any visible veins or blotches in the eye whites. This by itself usually makes a big difference. In Carly's case, her eyes are relatively clear to begin with, so it makes just a subtle difference.
(2) Next, I open up my secret weapon, Kevin Kubota's "Eyes and Teeth Enhance" action. You can find this action here. You can do the job without the action, using a combination of dodge, burn and the selection tool. But trust me, the results are much better and faster using this action. I had the good fortune of having Kevin Kubota teach me how to use this action in person 4 years ago, and I'm passing that instruction on to you here.
(3) When you run the action, you will see that it opens up several new layers on your layers palette. Click on the "eyes brighten" layer first. A soft brush will automatically be selected for you.
(4) Use the brush to paint over the entire eye white. In this closeup you can see that I've just started to paint the left side of this eye.
(5) Here are the eyes after I've painted over them at 100% opacity.
(6) As you can see, this is waaaay too bright, giving her that alien look. (note: I see this look on a lot of photographers' work - waaay overdone eye brightening!) Here it is after I've toned down the opacity to 50%.
(7) My next step is to desaturate the eye whites. This will remove pink/red eyes. Just click on the "desaturate" layer in your layer palette then paint over the eye whites just like you did in Step 4.
I usually leave the opacity around 75%. Why 75%? At 100% the eyes turn a bit too grey. 75% leaves a bit of the color in, giving the eyes whites a more natural look. Here are the eyes after desaturation.
(8) Now that I'm done with the whites, it's time to give a little love to the irises. The first thing I do is to click on the "darken shadows" layer.
(9) Using a small, soft brush, I paint over the outside of the iris. Don't paint the interior of the iris, just the edges. This will darken the edges and define the iris, making it pop out. I set the opacity around 50%.
(10) Now, I paint the inside of the iris using the "dodge" tool on the regular photoshop tools palette. This is to give some light onto the iris, as if it was well lighted with a close softbox.
(11) This is obviously way too much. Carly looks over-the-top evil, like a werewolf in transition! I back down the opacity here to around 35%.
That's it! So here's the "before" closeup:
And the "after" (after some sharpening as well)...
Just keep it natural. If it looks too obvious, then back off the opacity. Just remember that dull eyes make a dull portrait! Laurence Kim Workshops Location Lighting 101, March 20, Vancouver BC: seats available |