The eyes have long been considered the windows to the soul, but sometimes those windows need a bit of cleaning up and enhancing.
In this tutorial, we’ll create amazing looking eyes in Photoshop. I will show you 7 different techniques you can use to enhance anyone’s eyes.
Download Tutorial Image Here:
7 Techniques to Retouch Eyes in Photoshop:
01 – Retouch the White of the Eyes
You can use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to easily remove distractions from the white eyes like red veins.
02 – How to Sharpen Eyes
You can add Sharpness to eyes by using the Sharpen tool or the Smart Sharpen filter.
04 – How to Dodge and Burn Eyes
In this video, we will use a 50% gray layer that is set to the Overlay Blending Mode to add highlights and shadows using the Dodge and Burn tools.
05 – How to Add Highlights to Eyes
We will use a simple selection to add a highlight to the bottom of the eye.
03 – How to Add Contrast to Eyes
You can add contrast to eyes by using the Curves adjustment layer or the Selective Color adjustment layer.
06 – How to Change Eye Color
In this tutorial, we will use the Hue/Saturation Adjustment later to change eye color.
07 – Remove Chromatic Aberration from Eyes
We will use the Camera Raw filter to remove the purple (Chromatic Aberration) found in the highlights of the eye.
Bonus – How to Make a Multi-Colored Eye Effect
We will use a Gradient Fill layer to apply a cool multi-color eye effect.
You may not use all 7 in the same image, but using one or a combination of techniques will give you great results.
leave any comment or questions below, or send me a Tweet!
* To watch the original version of this tutorial released in 2012, you can go here.
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Final Image
Drag The Slider To See Before & After
Hi! Great tutorial! Love the effect on the eyes and best of it all is – now I know how to do it myself! 😀
Nikonian,
Glad you liked it!
I’m having trouble.. At 8:35 the step to “press ctrl under the sharpen layer to select the eyes” (for creating the curves layer). Nothing happens when I do this. I’m in the sharpen layer, but pressing ctrl does not select the eyes, even if I click on them. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. Do you think you can help? Thanks
Press CTRL (Mac: Command) on the layer thumbnail to select the opaque pixels of that layer.
I was not too clear on that in the video, but I hope this helps you out.
Yay! it worked…thanks!
Thank you, for nice tutorial
I try first
Thanks!
Wow – you’re a wonderful teacher and this is an awesome collection of eye treatments. I’m saving this one to watch again. Excellent work. And… THANK YOU!!!
Thanks Bill!
Hi,
I can’t find the Photoshop files, where can I get them?
I don’t provide the Photoshop files for tutorials, only images that are required to complete the tutorial. If you’re referring to the image of the woman’s eyes, then it’s not necessary for you to complete this tutorial. Just use any image you like that has a face! It shouldn’t be too hard for you to find one!
Yeah you are right…
Looks great! Can this be done in elements also?
Thank you,
Deborah, I believe some of the effects in this tut can also be done in Elements.
There’s really a huge difference now that you enhance the eyes. It looks nice and attractive.
Hi again, I’m having an issue with the highlight/shadow layer at the 10:00 mark. I’ve successfully created the layer following all directions, but when I turn off all other layers, I do not have a solid grey layer – it’s checkered. I’ve watched, done, redone several times to no avail. Help please! (sorry to be a pain!) Thank you so much! :o)
I enjoyed your PTC video on Enhancing Eyes in Photoshop. Trying to master the technique over 2 days I feel I am using the correct procedure with the 2 ellipses but when I release my mouse, and then the keys, the trimming does take place but but I loose areas on both sides of the eyes. Using PS CS6 on a current iMac. The enclosed 30 second video show my results. Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong?
Thank You,
Bob Fox
http://youtu.be/gbfDM5ACtsw
Bob, It looks like you may have feather set to a high value on the options bar. Make sure it’s set to 0.
Not so many can speak clearly without making everyone bored in a tutorial like this. Not only you did it nicely, but your results are fare above most that can be seen on the net. I really appreciate your techniques and I am very happy of my first try. Thanks for having spent this time making the tutorial, to help everyone reaching a higher level in our art.
French greetings, from Poland 😉
Thank you so much, Bernad!