Eye Reflection

[jmtonkin]

Hey all,

Yesterday, I took some senior pictures for a local senior. I've had this problem forever, and after looking at her pictures yesterday, decided that I needed to figure it out.

The problem:
When I take close-ups or head-shots, I often see my reflection in their eyes. How do I fix that?

Example #1

Example #2

 

[ronlane]

My opinion, you're looking too hard at it (pixel peeping). Both of those look fine to me. At normal viewing you won't notice it.

You could accentuate the catchlights and burn your image to darken it if you must.

 

[jmtonkin]

Fai

My opinion, you're looking too hard at it (pixel peeping). Both of those look fine to me. At normal viewing you won't notice it.

Fair enough!

 

[Braineack]

oh hai dar


DSC_9931-23 by The Braineack, on Flickr

its typical if you're shooting fairly short focal lengths and standing in front of the light source.

both your shots also appear as if you've put a bit of post procssing into the eyes to make it more apparent. especially #2, where the rest of the image looks untouched.

 

[Derrel]

If people stopped doing selective eye-sharpening, there would be no tears lost here on this end. It has the general effect of making close-up people shots look like photos of mounted deer heads, with big, fake, glass eyeballs.

As to the photographer reflected in the catchlights...I kind of like that look much of the time. It's pretty common in many scenarios, especially when shooting in open shade, and using overhead skylight as a soft, diffused main light source: the huge expanse of sky fills the majority of the eyeball with a bright catchlight, then the photographer standing in silhouette is easily seen. Because the subject is in dimmer, open shade, and the right exposure is set for the open shade, the sky-lighted area becomes very bright, and the photo's silhouette is easily,easily seen. Both the brick wall shot, and the on-her-back-in-a-field type locations are classic instances of where the conditions of the natural light and the subject's placement in open shade make this type of catchlight perfectly normal, and totally expected.

 

[jmtonkin]

I've actually done no processing to the eyes in either of these! I've done some minor adjustments to the whole shot, but no local adjustments!

 

[jmtonkin]

If people stopped doing selective eye-sharpening, there would be no tears lost here on this end. It has the general effect of making close-up people shots look like photos of mounted deer heads, with big, fake, glass eyeballs

I couldn't agree with this more, Derrel. In my opinion, it ruins the shot more than it helps.

 

[Derrel]

If people stopped doing selective eye-sharpening, there would be no tears lost here on this end. It has the general effect of making close-up people shots look like photos of mounted deer heads, with big, fake, glass eyeballs

I couldn't agree with this more, Derrel. In my opinion, it ruins the shot more than it helps.

Just to be clear, I did not think you had done selective eye-sharpening, but I just wanted to chime in WRT to braineack's comment about that onerous new trend. I think the catchlights in your two portraits here are fine. I think that catchlight size/shape/characteristics are not really seen much by regular folks...in much the same way that say the second violin in an orchestral performance is not heard by the masses when he flubs a note in some piece of music.

 

[jmtonkin]

If people stopped doing selective eye-sharpening, there would be no tears lost here on this end. It has the general effect of making close-up people shots look like photos of mounted deer heads, with big, fake, glass eyeballs

I couldn't agree with this more, Derrel. In my opinion, it ruins the shot more than it helps.

Just to be clear, I did not think you had done selective eye-sharpening, but I just wanted to chime in WRT to braineack's comment about that onerous new trend. I think the catchlights in your two portraits here are fine. I think that catchlight size/shape/characteristics are not really seen much by regular folks...in much the same way that say the second violin in an orchestral performance is not heard by the masses when he flubs a note in some piece of music.

Solid analogy!

 

[chuasam]

but that's the fun part