razor sharp eyes

[kgreen]

How do you do that?? I have friend whom I keep in contact with via the internet. She loves photography, & post's lot's of wonderful portraits. Photo after photo, the eyes are razor sharp, & i mean sharp, with beautiful color, & catch light. It's the first thing I see, & they almost pop right out of the photo. I asked her how she does that, because in my portraits the eyes are sharp but nothing like what she gets. She just says always focus on the eyes. That's all I get from her. Any tips??

 

[photo_chick]

How's your contrast? Good contrast will make things appear sharper and will make the eyes pop.

 

[disneyboy2003]

In addition to focusing on the eyes with the camera, she probably also uses Photoshop to sharpen her photos, especially around the eyes.

There are plenty of books and YouTube videos that provide instructions on how to do beauty retouching in Photoshop, especially with focus around the eyes.

 

[walter653]

I also want to learn more about this.

 

[wbeem]

First, it's imperative to make sure the eyes are in focus. When you take your shot, focus on the closest eye.

Next, post processing is important. As others have said, increasing the contrast and sharpening help. However, you need to do it selectively with layers and layer masks.

Brighten the iris, but not the dark ring on the outer edge or the pupil. Brighten the whites of the eye. Eliminate those little red veins.

Change the blend mode for your iris to Overlay or Soft Light in Photoshop to add some contrast. Alternatively, you can do the same thing with Levels, Curves, or Exposure adjustment layers.

Finally, sharpen just the iris (not the whites).

 

[photo_chick]

Next, post processing is important. As others have said, increasing the contrast and sharpening help. However, you need to do it selectively with layers and layer masks.

If you go into curves to work with the contrast globally, and do it well, there is no need to do it selectively. The goal is to get a good black, white and well defined range of tones across the image without clipping things. But don't just slide that contrast slider up, it won't get it done.

 

[kgreen]

Hey Thanks, nice explanation. Right now I only have photoshop elements, but will be getting photoshop soon. When I have sharpened in elements I believe you can only sharpen the photo as a whole not just areas such as the eye. Am I assuming correctly that you can sharpen certain areas by them self in photoshop? I have not learned how to work with layers yet.

 

[photo_chick]

I believe Elements has layers and layer masks now.

One way edit a single area of an image (a local adjustment) is to copy the image into a new layer, make the edit, then use a layer mask so that only the area that you want shows. You can also make global edits as layers so that your original image stays intact.

 

[kgreen]

Hey Thanks Danielle! Yes elements has layers, I just haven't learned how to use them yet. I will have to go play around, & see what I can learn.

 

[wbeem]

If you go into curves to work with the contrast globally, and do it well, there is no need to do it selectively. The goal is to get a good black, white and well defined range of tones across the image without clipping things. But don't just slide that contrast slider up, it won't get it done.

I disagree. The idea of working selectively is to use the adjustment you want for the area you want. For example, I may want different contrast or exposure adjustment on the eyes than I want on the hair. Even the whites of the eyes may need a different adjustment than the iris.