Yes, Photoshop CS2 has a red-eye removal tool, but it doesn’t always work so well. This technique takes a bit more work, but it’s guaranteed to work. Want to learn more? Read on.

First, pick out your image. The image I’ve chosen is from ImmortalGoddezz – I found it over at Wikipedia. Our subject clearly has a case of red-eye – we’re going to fix that.

Next, open up your image in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or your image editor of choice. Once there, open apply a Channel Mixer adjustment layer on the image. You can do that by clicking Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer.

A dialog window will immediately pop up asking for a name for the new layer – name it anything you want. I suggest something descriptive like “red-eye removal” or something like that, but that’s totally up to you.

The next window that will pop up is the Channel Mixer window. It will show the red output channel and have default values of 100, 0, and 0 for the red, green, and blue source channels respectively.

What we want to do is get rid of the red – that’s why we’ll drop the value for that source channel to zero. Of course, we still want the output to hit 100%, so we have to raise the green and blue values to 50% each.

This will give our subject a sickly greenish-grayish-bluish skin tone, but don’t worry – we’ll fix that in a bit.

All we have to do is to reverse the mask for our adjustment layer.

More likely than not, pressing Ctrl-I will do the trick. If it doesn’t, just undo the last step and click on the little white box beside the channel mixer. Then you can fill it with black any way you want. Again, I recommend pressing Ctrl-I.

At this point, our subject’s eyes will be as red as ever. You might be wondering why we’re back at square one. Don’t worry – we’re going to brush the red away from her eyes. Select the brush tool, make sure we’re still on the mask of our adjustment layer (you didn’t select anything else, did you?), and select the default foreground and background colors. As you can see from the dialog, you can simply press D to do this.

Now you can brush over the red parts of her eyes – I choose to use a very soft (0%) circular brush that’s slightly smaller than the red area. Just move the brush around in small circular motions until you get rid of the red.

In the example to the right, I’ve already fixed one eye and I’m working on the other. You can also see the size of the brush I’m using. Again, small circular strokes are what you need to get the job done.

Of course, if you’re not too careful, you might take out more red than you want. As you can see off to the right, I’ve done just that. She looks like she has a patch of gray skin around her eye.

It’s a good thing we’re dealing with layer masks – we can put color back just as easily as we take it out. All you have to do is choose black as our foreground color and brush some color back in.

Just click on the little arrow shown on the right, or as the tool tip says, press X. Now armed with a black brush, you can hide unwanted portions of the adjustment layer. In this case, we want to brush away the gray around her eye.

There you have it! Now you can get rid of those spooky red eyes in your photos. As for our little project here, you can see the final result here.

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Philippine photographer Parc Cruz has posted a nice tutorial on Flickr for what he describes as his Contact Lens Workflow. Though I don’t agree with him on all the different steps, I definitely can’t argue with the results.

If you’ve ever wanted to get rid of red-eye, make somebody’s eyes stand out, or even change somebody’s eye color, this is a great tutorial for you.

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An ounce of prevention…

Before we get to the solution, however, let’s discuss a simple way to prevent the problem in the first place – synchronize your cameras. This way, when you process all the shots from an event, you know that you’re seeing all the images shot in chronological order.

If you’ve already shot the event, or if you simply don’t have the time to set the clocks on your three dozen different cameras, don’t fret – I’ve got other ideas for getting all your images in order.

A little disclaimer

I’m assuming, of course, that you have software that can edit the metadata in your images. I use you Adobe Lightroom for processing, so some of my instructions will be specific to it. If you use Aperture or some other software, I can’t really help you. You can, however, share your own tips below.

The point is this – if you can’t edit the metadata on your images, I don’t have any suggestions for you. If you can, well, read on.

Three tricks

There are three ways I can think of to make sure all your images are timed correctly. One involves manual labor (or lots of fingers), another requires remote triggers, and another involves a simple clock or watch. All of them involve giving all your cameras a common frame of reference.

First, let’s discuss the manual labor method. Count the number of cameras you have, then get as many volunteers. Have them all point at something or someone – you, for example. Have them all fire off a frame at the count of 3. Easy enough, right? You might need to take a few shots, but eventually, you’ll get all the cameras firing at the same time. Of course, the more cameras you have, the less reliable this method becomes.

Next on the list is the trigger method. If you have enough equipment, you can attach remote triggers to all your cameras. Point them all one subject, press the trigger, and there you have it – synchronized shots.

The last item (and the one I recommend) involves a clock. Look for a clock or watch with a second hand – all you have to do is get a shot of that same clock with every camera in your arsenal. You can choose to do this at the start, at the end, or even at any point during the event. You won’t have synchronized shots, but you will have a time reference common to all your cameras.

Put it all together

By now, I think you get the idea already. Give all your cameras a common time or reference to synchronize to, then edit the time codes on the images when you get to a computer. How do you do this?

In the Library module in Lightroom, you will find a panel for Metadata. You’ll probably find it off to the right. If you can’t find it, you can press Ctrl-3 to make it appear.

Look for the field marked Capture Time. If you opted for either of the first two tricks above, you want this field to be identical among all your reference frames. If you went with the clock method, you want this field to match the time on the clock down to the last second. We’re going to do this by clicking on the little icon off to the right, but wait.

Aside from the reference frame, you want to select all the photos taken with that camera. Do that first (I usually keep all images from one camera in a folder), then click that icon.

Another window should pop up now – this one labeled Edit Capture Time. Here you can set a new time for your reference frame – all the other frames you selected “will be adjusted by the same amount of time.” Repeat this step for all the images from each camera, and pretty soon, you’re going to have all your images in chronological order.

Once again…

If you want to have all your shots from a multiple camera shoot in order, synchronize the clocks on your cameras.

If you can’t avoid that, you’ve got a few tricks to help you synchronize your images in post-processing – my recommendation is to get a shot of a clock with a second hand in every camera.

Lastly, get Adobe Lightroom, Aperture, or some other software to help you manage your images – it will make processing them a whole lot easier.

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It’s about time though that we make this delete button obsolete. Why? Let me count the ways…

1. The LCD on your camera lies. You got that right – the LCD on your camera lies. As of this posting, there is no way to calibrate the little screens at the back of your camera. Even if there were, there you can’t always control your ambient light – and that can sometimes make a gorgeous image look like crap on that tiny LCD. Wait until you get to a larger screen, then make your judgement.
2. You can’t trust your fingers. If you delete images straight from you camera, you will, at some point, delete an image you don’t want to erase. Call it clumsiness, Murphy’s Law, or plain bad luck – but whatever you call it, it will give you a headache. Yes, you can try to recover it when you get back to your computer, but in the meantime, you can’t use your memory card.
3. Your batteries are weak. That LCD at the back of your camera is a power hog, and the more time you spend reviewing, trimming, and deleting images, the less time you have to shoot. If you keep deleting images, before you know it, you’ll end up with an empty battery and an empty memory card.
4. You’re too slow. Even the best multi-taskers cannot shoot and review images at the same time. If you keep deleting images from your camera, you’re going to miss everything you want to shoot. At the end of the day, all your shots will be reminders of the ones that got away.

Yes, I know there are times when it’s just so tempting to delete in image from your camera, but do try to resist the urge. Cameras are made for capturing images. Leave the editing to the computer.

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