Are you looking for a short guide on how to fix red eyes in Photoshop? In this 1 minute tutorial, we will be learning step-by-step how to remove red eye in Photoshop. Fixing red eyes in Photoshop is not a big deal, just follow a few easy steps given below.
Table of Contents
Why do Eyes Appear Red?
Typically red eyes appear when you click a photo in low light conditions while keeping the camera’s flashlight on. This happens because our eyes have blood inside, blood is red. When the camera’s sudden flashlight hits our eyes directly, the red color of blood in our eyes reflects into the camera, this makes the eyes look red in the photo. This happens especially when the flashlight is the only source of light, and the whole surrounding is dark.
How to Avoid Red Eyes?
If possible, prefer natural light and other light sources rather than using flashlights. Turning off the flashlight is the best thing you can do to eliminate the chances of red eyes being captured. If you are using the camera’s flashlight, do not look directly into the camera’s lens.
How to Remove Red Eyes?
With the help of Adobe Photoshop’s Red Eye Tool, you can easily replace red eyes in your photo with natural eyes. This tool is recommended because it is an automatic single-click tool. You just need to select this tool and apply it, That’s it.
Steps to Fix Red Eyes in Photoshop
1. Open the Photo in Photoshop
The first step is to open the photo with the red eyes problem in photoshop. (Skip to point no.2, if you know how to do it.)
How to open a photo in photoshop: To open a photo, Click on ‘File’ in photoshop’s topmost menu bar. In the dropdown menu, click on ‘Open’. Your computer’s file manager will pop up, showing all the photos on your computer. Navigate to your target photo, then select and open it. This will import that photo directly into a photoshop project.
2. Select Photoshop’s Red Eye Tool
Once you open the photo, go to the ‘toolbar’ on the left. There is a tool called ‘Red Eye Tool’, select it. You can identify the ‘Red Eye Tool’ as an icon with an eye and a plus (+) sign on it.
If you do not see the ‘Red Eye Tool’ in front, it is hidden under the ‘Spot healing brush tool’. You can identify the ‘Spot healing brush tool’ as an icon with a band-aid on a spot. Either click and hold on to the ‘Spot healing brush tool’ icon or right-click on it, this will reveal more tools under it. Find the ‘Red Eye Tool’ there, and select it.
3. Adjust the Settings of ‘Red Eye Tool‘
Where are the settings of ‘Red Eye Tool’: In photoshop, every tool has its own different settings which you can adjust. The settings for your currently selected tool will appear at the ‘Tool Options Bar’ located at the top of the photoshop application. In our case, the ‘Red Eye Tool’ is selected, so the top ‘Tool Options Bar’ will show the settings of ‘Red Eye Tool’.
Best settings: For ‘Red Eye Tool’ you will see 2 settings in the ‘Tool Options Bar’. One is the ‘Pupil Size’ setting, set it to 50%. Another one is the ‘Darken Amount’ setting, set it to 50% too. Setting both ‘Pupil Size’ and ‘Darken Amount’ to 50% will give good results in most cases. But sometimes, you may need to test and try different values.
4. Fix the Red Eye (Final Step)
There are 2 ways you can apply the ‘Red Eye Tool’:
1. By Taping on the eye: We will be fixing both red eyes individually. Locate your mouse to the first eye. With the mouse left key, single-click on the eye’s red pupil. The red eye will be fixed immediately after your click. Then go to the second eye, and do the same with it. Done, both natural eyes are back.
2. By selecting the eye: We will do it one by one. Go to the first eye. By dragging the mouse pointer, make a tiny square selection covering the entire red part of the eye. (In a way that the red part falls inside the selection). The red eye is now gone. Repeat this same step on the second eye. Done, red eyes problem solved.
Bonus Tip: White portion of the eye is not affected, only the pupil part (center spot of the eye) has this red eye problem. So while editing, your target part should not be the whole eye, it should be the red pupil inside it.
Done, we have now completely solved the red eyes problem using the Adobe Photoshop application. You can see the results in before and after photos.
Up next, I recommend you learn: In 1 minute – How to Photoshop someone into a picture