Removing Dark Circles Under Eyes


Here are two different techniques for removing the dark circles that sometimes appear under a person's eyesespecially after a hard night of drinking. At least, that's what I've been told.

Method One

The Clone Stamp Tool
Step One

Open the photo that has the dark circles you want to lessen. (Note: If needed, press Z to get the Zoom tool and zoom in closer on your subject's eyes.) Press the letter S to select the Clone Stamp tool from the Toolbox. In the Options Bar, click on the thumbnail after the word "Brush," and in the resulting Brush Picker, choose a soft-edged brush that's half as wide as the area you want to repair.

Step Two

Go up to the Options Bar and lower the Opacity of the Clone Stamp tool to 50%. Then, change the Mode pop-up menu to Lighten (so you'll only affect areas that are darker than your sample).

Step Three

Hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click once in an area near the eye that isn't affected by the dark circles. If the cheeks aren't too rosy, you can click there, but more likely you'll click on (sample) an area just below the dark circles under the eyes.

Step Four

Take the Clone Stamp tool and paint over the dark circles to lessen or remove them. It may take two or more strokes for the dark circles to pretty much disappear, so don't be afraid to go back over the same spot if the first stroke didn't work.

Before

After

Method Two

The Patch Tool
Step One

Go to the Toolbox and choose the Patch tool (click-and-hold on the Healing Brush until the flyout menu appears or just press Shift-J until you have the tool).

Step Two

Make sure the Patch tool is set to Source in the Options Bar and draw a selection around one of the dark circles under the eye. The Patch tool operates much like the Lasso tool for drawing selections (meaning you simply click-and-drag to create a selection). Also, like the Lasso tool, once your selection is in place, if you need to add to it, just hold the Shift key and "lasso" in some more areas. If you need to subtract from your Patch tool selection, hold the Option (PC: Alt) key instead.

Step Three

After your selection is in place, click directly within the selected area and drag it to a part of the face that's clean and doesn't have any edges. By that I mean you don't want your dragged selection to overlap the edge of any other facial features such as the nose, lips, eyebrows, edge of the face, and so on. You need a clean, uninterrupted area of skin. In Photoshop CS2, you'll see a preview of what your patch will look like (that's why you see two selections in the capture shown here).

Step Four

After you've found that clean area, release the mouse button and the Patch tool will automatically sample it, snap back to the original selected area, and perform the retouch for you.

Step Five

Press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect, and you'll see the dark circle is completely gone. The Healing Brush can also be used to diminish or erase dark circles, but the Patch tool does it so quickly and effortlessly that I greatly prefer it for this retouch.

Before (dark circles under the eyes)

After (dark circles removed using the Patch tool)



    The Photoshop CS2 Book(c) for Digital Photographers
    The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
    ISBN: B002DMJUBS
    EAN: N/A
    Year: 2006
    Pages: 187
    Authors: Scott Kelby

    flylib.com © 2008-2017.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net