removing 'red' eye on pets

[ATXshots]

I am having issues finding a good way to remove the 'red' or yellow eye on dogs. I am a groomer and dog trainer so I often take photos of my clients...but I ALWAYS get the 'yellow' looking eyes....example below...

Oh, I have PS CS3

[TPF Sponsor]

[Big Mike]

The best way would be to avoid it in the first place by not using on-camera flash.

I don't remember if Photoshop has some sort of automatic red eye removing tool...check the help menu. If not, you can select the color in the eyes and then change it. Maybe you can just turn it black or to a better color. Maybe just desaturate it. There are plenty of things you can do.

[ATXshots]

Yeah, I have tried all those things. They never look right. I think its because the eyes are so big...when I change the color it just looks fake. Oh well, thanks anyways

[TWoods450]

Yeah, I have tried all those things. They never look right. I think its because the eyes are so big...when I change the color it just looks fake. Oh well, thanks anyways

have you tried taking a pic without the flash and cutting the eyes out of that place it on the good pic then soften the edges to blend?

[kundalini]

The problem with most animals is that they do not have "red" eye, it's usually green or yellow. Red eye correction is useless because it only affects the red channel.

Your best solution is as Big Mike said, don't use the on-board flash, else paint it in with PP edit. Try using a bounce card (white business card) or diffuser (tissue paper) in front of your flash also to reduce the effect.

[DRoberts]

There are two ways to do this...one is to actually paint new eyes. This usually ends up with a dull flat effect though. The way I prefer is to use your brush tool, on red - medium opacity- just a hair smaller than the pupil of the eye. Make the eye red(ish). then you can use the "red eye tool". This will give an effect that will still use the previous color to give the eye some depth and "reflection". Lastly use the brush tool at a very small size - color white, to add lighting into the eyes.
This was done in about 1 minute, spend two or three on it and you could make it look better...I also did a levels adjustment to lighten the dog and an unsharp mask.

[ATXshots]

DRoberts...I love your idea thanks so much! I have about a million photos to practice on LOL. And you did great on the editing...she looks so white! What does an 'unsharp mask' do?

Thank to everyone else's advice...never heard of tissue paper over the flash!

[DRoberts]

Unsharp mask brings out more detail in your photos. It will take out a reasonable amount of blur. Used alot in eyes. I assume you know where it is in CS3, but if not, go to Filters>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. There will be three sliders 1. Amount 2. Radius 3. Threshold. Amount is the slider you will mostly use to get your effect. Radius will usually not be moved once set. I set my radius to "1". Threshold is another that once it's set I usually don't mess with, I keep it at "4". Of course there will be times you want to try different settings on all, that will come with experimentation.

Good luck with your other photos and have fun.

[LokiZ]

Hmm Several of my dogs get blue eye as well. What I do for starters is usually slap a gray scale version underneath and then just use Alpha channeling to bring the dark colorless gray scale version to the top unchanged with the exception of no more red, yellow, green, or blue. helps to the keep the image as close to original as possible and no detail is lost. If your worried about the color as in some cases where the dogs eyes are more brown you can always use the eyedropper and tint the under version rather then using just gray scale/ B/W

I'll have to post an example or two when I get home and find a few.

[gbug46]

I have this problem with animal pics as well... I have been playing around with the advice here and can't seem to figure out where to adjust the alpha channeling... where is that located? I also couldn't find red eye removal in my photoshop 7.0 version.... though I am sure that it is in there somewhere!

I used Paint Shop Pro for years with great results and have just recently started learning more about photoshop... I have learned quite a bit, but really want to learn to use it more because I always tend to end up back in PSP because I know where everything is.

[ATXshots]

Hmm Several of my dogs get blue eye as well. What I do for starters is usually slap a gray scale version underneath and then just use Alpha channeling to bring the dark colorless gray scale version to the top unchanged with the exception of no more red, yellow, green, or blue. helps to the keep the image as close to original as possible and no detail is lost. If your worried about the color as in some cases where the dogs eyes are more brown you can always use the eyedropper and tint the under version rather then using just gray scale/ B/W

I'll have to post an example or two when I get home and find a few.

Okay I have issues with putting photos underneath others. I can NEVER get them lined up correctly...any advice?

[Lyncca]

Yea, like Big Mike said, if you can bounce the flash or get it off camera, it really is your best bet. Not only is it much easier in post processing, the portrait looks better as a whole....



or you could use natural light...

[TwoRails]

I am having issues finding a good way to remove the 'red' or yellow eye on dogs. ...

Paint Shop Pro has long had Animal Red Eye Removal. Works pretty good. It retails for about $100 but you can sometimes find it on super sale. I recently bought the full version for $29 at Best Buy, which was about $20 less then what Corel wanted for just an online upgrade.

Here's an example on one of my "girls." You can see there are a variety of controls and you can even adjust the shape of the correction area. I have the "Preview on Image" check so I can see the results on the photo as well as in the edit window:






.

[mrsmcg]

I tried Droberts suggestion, which sounded interesting, but it didn't work for me.

I still need to try Lokiz's idea, but I need to figure out how to do the grayscale copy.

The animal I am trying to correct the eye color on, has "blue-eye" in the photo.

Thanks,
Colleen

[bryandadams]

I am looking forward to trying these tips. I have a few animal pics from the rodeo and of our pets...including one that is no longer with us.