At last, a tool which the big brother inherited from its little brother. Red Eye Tool of Photoshop CS2 was adopted from Elements 3. Already we have provided a couple of tips on how to get rid of the unwelcome red eye effect in a photo, but these were mostly time-consuming and more complex tools. If you like a half-automated quick method, go ahead and try Red Eye Tool.
Load the photo
No, the red eyes seen in this photo are not part of the stage elements, so we’d better remove them.
Zoom
Before starting, it is advisable to zoom in a bit so that the area to be modified (this time the eyes) becomes more accessible. Zoom screen to 200-400% on the Navigator palette or in the Zoom field of the bottom left corner.
Brush-up
Our main tool will be Red Eye Tool, which is quite well-hidden among the healing brushes. You just have to select the desired eye area and the software will automatically do the correction.
If you click on it, you can set two things in the upper options row. The first one is Pupil Size. To achieve the appropriate results, it is essential to select the whole of the middle of the eye, that is the colorful iris as well. Set the Pupil Size in percentage in proportion with the selection. In this example, this is around 60-70% (we wrote 66%).
Another important option is the Darken Amount. It is not necessary to have black pupils in a picture. In our sample there is no black area at all. The photo is quite poor in contrasts, so we need more of a grey shade here, otherwise the look becomes unnatural, and in place of the red eyes, the piercing black pupils would be conspicuous. We set the amount to 35% only. The bigger the value, the darker the pupil becomes.
The precarious area encircled
After finishing the settings described above, all you need to do is select the middle section of the eyes, starting from the top left corner. As you can see the redness takes up some 60% of the selection. As you release the mouse button, the software automatically corrects the defect.
If the correction is not sufficient, go back one step on the Historypalette on the left, and repeat the action described above this time with a bit different values, until the redness goes away. This may require several attempts.
Without red headlights
Looks better, doesn’t it? The expressive look remains, the redness is gone.
If you are not completely satisfied with the result, or prefer to handle removing red eye effect by yourself, we recommend the tools listed below, which are available in older Photoshop versions as well.