Correcting Red Eye

If you're in an indoor or darkened space, your pupils grow larger to let in more light. The pupils can't shrink fast enough to compensate for a camera's flash, so when that light reflects off the back of the eye, it causes red eye. Many newer cameras have flashes that flicker before the picture is actually snapped, giving the subject's pupils a chance to dilate and greatly reduce the effects of red eye. But chances are that you still have some older photos lying around that you'd like to repair. The Red Eye Removal tool offers an effective way to remove red eye, simply by changing pixels from one color to another.

To remove red eye from a photograph

1.	Select the Red Eye Removal tool from the toolbox, or press Y (Figure 6.43). Figure 6.43. The Red Eye Removal tool.
2.	On the options bar, set the Pupil Size slider to match the proportional size of the pupil (the red part of the eye that you want to turn black) to the colored portion of the eye. Then, on the options bar, use the Darken Amount slider to control the darkness of the retouched pupil (Figure 6.44). Figure 6.44. Two sliders on the options bar help you to adjust red eye removal. Although these settings are not inconsequential, the defaults of 50 percent work fine in the majority of cases I've tried.
3.	If necessary, zoom in on the area you want to correct, then click and drag to draw a selection over the colored portion of one eye (Figure 6.45). Figure 6.45. To remove red eye, simply draw a selection rectangle around the colored portion of the eye and release the mouse button.
4.	Release the mouse button to remove the red eye effect. If you're not quite satisfied with the results the first time, press Ctrl+Z to undo the operation, and then repeat steps 2 through 4, revising the option bar settings or changing the size of the selection before you click and drag.

Tip

• You may have noticed the Auto button to the right of the Darken Amount slider on the options bar. You're welcome to give it a try, although I've had mixed success with using it. The Red Eye Removal tool is really so simple to use on its own that I tend not to bother with the Auto button.