Occurrence of red eye in digital photographs exasperates photographers of all levels. Although there are some really good online tools and softwares to remove red eye from digital photographs, but the art of preventing the occurrence of red eye while using flash is something that separates good photographers from average photographers. In this post I will be referring both the methods of reducing the red eye, i.e. pre-photography and post-photography.
What causes red eye in digital photographs?
Well, red eye is a problem that occurs while using flash in low light conditions. Here is a detailed explanation how and why it happens…
Suppose you are capturing the photo of a person sitting in a dark room where the light is not enough. So you are likely to use the flash on the camera. In dark, the pupil of the eye is dilated so that more light can enter the eyes for better and clear vision. That's a natural effect. Now when you are using the flash, the light from the flash is reflected back to the camera lens by the dilated pupil of the person. This causes the red eye in the digital photograph.
Now suppose the same person is sitting in a bright room with enough lights. In such a condition, the pupil of the eye would contract to avoid glare…again for better vision. Now if the photographer would use the flash then it is less likely that the red eye would occur. Now that you have a better understanding of what actually causes the red eye, lets head on to the methods to avoid them…
There are two methods of avoiding or removing red eye…
1. Pre-photography methods
As the name suggests here we focus on red eye prevention before capturing the photo. As explained under the causes of red eye, our first preference will be to shoot under appropriate light conditions. If somehow, you need to capture under dark conditions, then our second preference will be to turn off the flash and capture under a high ISO setting under the manual mode.
2. Post-photography methods
These methods include the removal of red eye after capturing the photograph. Some cameras these days come with an advanced feature of red eye correction. One can easily remove the red eyes by exploring this unique feature under the photo retouch option of the camera. Secondly, you can use softwares like Google Picasa, PhotoScape and Adobe Photoshop for red eye correction. Google Picasa is one of the easiest software that comes with a one click red eye correction tool. Here's how you can perform a quick red eye removal in Google Picasa…
Red eye correction by using softwares
Red Eye Correction in Google Picasa
1. Open your image in Picasa and click on red eye under basic fixes tab.
Red Eye Correction in PhotoScape
1. Open your photo in PhotoScape under the editor section and tools –> red eye correction
2. Drag a small box around around each eye to remove the red eye as the software says..it’s that simple !!
Red Eye correction in Adobe Photoshop CS4
Open your photo in Photoshop and on the left toolbar select red eye tool under the bandage shaped tool (healing tool). Then single click on each red eye to remove it instantly.
Red Eye correction in Adobe Lightroom 3.4
To fix red eyes using adobe Lightroom, open up your photo in Lightroom and then navigate from library to develop located on the top right side. Lightroom is equipped with a powerful and easy to use red eye correction option located on the right side panel of the toolbar.
After clicking on the red eye, drag from the center of the red eye. It will be fixed instantly.
To save your photo, navigate back to the library and export it to any desired location on your computer.
