Any work you do to a subjects eyes during the editing process will have a dramatic impact on the portrait. There are so many different things you can do to enhance eyes – pupil enlargement, changing colour, creating new eye lashes etc. In this tutorial I’d like to show you a few of the basic steps I often take to improve eyes in my own retouch work.
This particular image is nearing the end of the retouch but for the purposes of this tutorial I’ve left the eyes until last. However, I would normally work on the eyes relatively early in the retouch.
1. After I’ve got rid of any little veins, hairs or stray lashes that I find distracting I generally start by brightening the eyes. There are many different ways to do this but my preferred method is to start by creating a mask using Calculations. The main benefit of using this method is that the mask you create will help maintain the shadow and shape of the eyeball when brightening the eyes. Select Image > Calculations. These settings will change from image to image but you’re looking to create the best contrast between the whites in the eye and the darker areas in the image. Set the ‘Result’ to give you a selection which you can then use to create your mask. Click OK.
2. With your selection active create a new group by going to Layer > New > Group (you’ll see why in the next step). With the group highlighted click the adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette or choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer and add a Curves adjustment. Your mask will automatically be created from the active selection and the curve adjustment will be created within the group.
3. As the mask on the curves adjustment has already been used it needs to be inside a group so we can add a second layer mask. This is important as you only want your adjustment to affect the eyes and not the whole image. With the group selected create a new mask by selecting Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. With a soft white brush paint over the eyes.
4. Select your curves adjustment layer and brighten the eyes to taste.
5. The whites of the eyes in this image are a little yellow, probably from to the toning I added, so I’d like to whiten them a little. We’ve already got a mask in place for the group so it makes sense to use this and create a new adjustment within the group. Click the adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette or choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer and add a Hue/Saturation adjustment. In the Hue/Saturation window select Yellows and lower the saturation.
6. I think the catchlights could do with a little help to make them sparkle. Create a new layer, set the blend mode to ‘soft light’ and fill with 50% grey. With a small soft brush set to around 10% opacity paint with white on the 50% grey layer to dodge the catchlights. Personally, I find I’m always a little heavy handed with this so I just lower the opacity of the layer until it looks good.
7. I don’t do this on every image but I think the models eyes could benefit from being a little wider. I think this technique is called ‘Hollywood Eyes’ and its very simple to achieve. Make a wide selection of the eyes with the rectangular marquee tool and Edit > Copy Merged and Paste onto a new layer. Select Edit > Transform > Scale. In the ‘Height’ box at the top of your screen enter 102% and hit return to apply the transformation. You could go wider but I find 102% to be a good starting point. You could always convert this layer to a Smart Object if you wanted the option to play around with different percentages without degrading your image.
8. Add a Hide All layer mask by selecting Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All and with a soft white brush paint on the black layer mask to reveal your transformed eyes.
9. My final step in this image is to improve the contrast in the eyes and give them a little more punch. This can be done really easily by using the UnSharp Mask filter with a high radius and a low amount, an effect similar to the Clarity slighter in Adobe Lightroom. Make another wide selection of the eyes with the rectangular marquee tool and and Edit > Copy Merged and Paste onto a new layer. Personally, I always convert this layer to a smart object so I can make changes to the settings if needed – Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object. When your happy with your settings click OK.
10. Add a layer mask to the UnSharp Mask layer by selecting Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All and with a soft brush paint with white on the black mask to reveal the sharpening over the eyes and lashes. If the effect is too strong when you see it in context of the whole image you can simply click the UnSharp Mask filter in the layers palette and change your settings.
Before & After:
by Alan
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