Digital Focus: Remove Red Eye, All About Enlarging

Use an image editor to get the red out, plus the bad news on enlarging photos.

Dave Johnson

Feature: Eliminate the Evil Eye Digitally

Remember those evil Dobermans in The Omen? That's what I think of whenever I see a photo of someone with flash-induced red eye. Red eye, of course, is the phenomenon that occurs when the camera flash reflects off your subject's retina. This happens when the pupils are wide open because you're shooting in the dark or in low light. You probably know how to minimize red eye--by using the red-eye reduction mode on your camera, for instance. But what happens if you already have a few photos with red eye? Like a human bottle of eye medication, you can get the red out yourself. All you need is your favorite image editor.

Automatic Red Eye Removal

The easiest way to eliminate red eye is by using your image editor's automatic red eye tool. So before you get dirty doing it the manual way, check to see if your software has a red-eye removal feature. Some tools are completely automated: Just draw a box around the eyes, and the software does the rest. Paint Shop Pro, my program of choice, has a great semi-automated process for eliminating red eye.

Start by opening a photo that includes someone with a case of the Evil Eye. Use my sample image if you'd like--it's got two cases of the worst red eye I've ever seen.

In the Paint Shop Pro menu, choose Effects, Enhance Photo, Red-Eye Removal. You'll see the Red-Eye Removal dialog box, which has a preview window on the right and an editing window on the left. Start with the kid on the left--he'll be a bit easier to work on, since he doesn't have a pair of glasses getting in the way. Drag the image in the preview window around until you see a red eye in the middle of the frame. (Don't try dragging the left side around, since that's where you'll "draw" on the eyes.) Once you can see the eye, use the zoom buttons, which are located in the middle-right below the preview and editing windows, to zoom in until the eye fills as much of the frame as possible.

Make sure that the Method is set to Auto Human Eye and select a proper hue and color. Once everything is ready, go to the left (editing) window, click in the dead-center of a red eye, and drag the mouse outward until the circle expands enough to cover as much of the red as you can without going beyond the natural bounds of the iris. Check your work in the preview window on the right. Keep in mind that some of the surrounding reddish tinge you'll see at full zoom will be unnoticeable in a normal view. You can resize and re-position the eye if needed.

Repeat the process for the other eye. When both eyes are finished, click OK to close the Red-Eye Removal dialog box and keep your changes.

The Old-Fashioned Way

If you're using an image editor that doesn't have a red-eye remover, you'll have to take the red out yourself. It's easy, though, and it doesn't even take a particularly steady hand.

There are a few ways to tackle the problem. For instance, in Paint Shop Pro, you could zoom in and use the Magic Wand tool to select the red in each eye and then paint the selections a color that looks natural for that subject--blue or black, for instance.

But if you've got a lot of images to fix, I have an easier solution: Load the offending image and zoom way in so that an eye fills much of the screen. Choose the standard Paint Brush from the toolbar and make sure that its shape is set to round in the Tool Options dialog box. (Right-click on the tool to bring up a list of options, then pick Tool Options.) Set the size--the brush's diameter--to approximately the size of the red in the photo. In the sample photo I've supplied, 8 pixels is just about right.

Now set the foreground and background colors of the brush. Go to the rectangular color palette on the upper-right edge of the screen and right-click in the bottom left of the rectangle to set the background color to black. Left-click in the upper right to set white as the foreground color.

Finally, position the brush over a red eye and stamp it black by right-clicking. Go back to the Tool options dialog box and change the brush size to about 2 pixels, then stamp with the left button to add the white glint in the center of the eye. That's all there is to it. The results aren't perfect, of course, but they'll turn a throw-away photo into something you might want to keep.

Notice that you don't have to do a perfect job to create a fairly convincing eye--the detail is so small in most pictures that simply eliminating most of the red is enough to dramatically improve the picture.

Dave's Favorites: Need a Lens? Visit Tiffen

It doesn't take long for a lot of digital camera owners to decide they'd love to have a longer lens to grab more distant scenes. Or a wide-angle lens to cram more scenery into a landscape shot. Or even a macro lens to take close-up, high-magnification photos of small objects. Very few digital cameras let you change lenses, though, and so most folks just assume they can't upgrade their camera with new optics.

That's not the case! Tiffen sells a family of add-on lenses that I highly recommend for digital photographers who want to shoot scenes that would benefit from a close-up, wide-angle, or telephoto accessory. In many cases, though, you can't buy just the lens--you need an adapter that fits the lens to your camera. Visit the Tiffen digital camera site.

To see if your digital camera is compatible with Tiffen lenses, scroll down the page and click the logo in the lower-right corner that represents your camera. If your camera model is listed, just order the lens mount that goes with the lens you want to buy. Tiffen offers mounts for a wide range of cameras, so odds are good that you'll be able to add a lens to your particular camera.

Q&A: Should I Enlarge My Digital Images?

Thanks for your recent tips on making picture files smaller for e-mail and the Web. However, it seems that no one ever addresses the procedure of going from the small picture back to the larger one. What do you suggest?

--Michael Epstein, Indianapolis, Indiana

There's a reason that we don't often talk about going from a small image to a big one. In general, Michael, you shouldn't ever re-size an image larger than the original, because you're not adding more information to the image, you're really just making it fuzzy and "pixely."

So, here's some practical advice: If you take a 3.3-megapixel image and resize it small enough for e-mail, save the smaller version as a copy of the original, with a different file name. Don't over-write the original large image unless you're sure you'll never need it again. If you throw away a lot of pixels to shrink your image, you'll find that you can't put those pixels back by using your image editor's resizing tool.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $10 and $100.

A gentle reminder, folks: We disqualify some really wonderful pictures every week because the submissions don't follow the rules. Be sure to include everything we ask for in your e-mail message, including a description of your picture and your complete contact information, or your entry is wasted!

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering please read the full description of the contest rules and regs.

This week's Hot Pic: "Awaiting Parade," by Michael Lynch, Ronkon, New York

About this cool night photo, Michael says, "I took this on a recent visit to Walt Disney World. The photo is of my daughter, Kaitlyn, before the start of the Electric Light Parade. I took the photo with my Canon Supershot 20 using the Slow Shutter setting."

This photo is a great example of how you can combine a slow shutter speed with the flash to capture background motion while still freezing your subject--and the overall effect can be quite surreal.

We want your feedback! Send your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself to comments@bydavejohnson.com. If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in the weekly Q&A, send it to question@bydavejohnson.com.

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