Enhancing Eyebrows and Eyelashes


After Kevin Ames showed me this technique for enhancing eyebrows and eyelashes, I completely abandoned the method I'd used for years and switched over to this method because it's faster, easier, and more powerful than any technique I've seen yet.

Step One

Open the photo that you want to enhance. Press L to get the Lasso tool and draw a loose selection around one eyebrow. It isn't necessary to make a precise selection; make it loose like the one shown here. Your subject might be turned so that there's only one eyebrow showing; but if there are two (meaning the person doesn't have a unibrow), after you select one eyebrow, press-and-hold the Shift key while creating a selection around the other eyebrow.

Step Two

Once your eyebrows are selected, press Command-J (PC: Control-J) to put the eyebrows on their own separate layer. Then, switch the layer blend mode of this eyebrow layer from Normal to Multiply in the Layers palette, which will darken the entire layer.

Step Three

Press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Holding down the Option/Alt key fills the layer mask with black, which hides the Multiply effect from view. The eyebrows will look normal again. Now, ensure your Foreground color is set to white (it should be by default), and then press B to switch to the Brush tool. In the Options Bar, click on the thumbnail to the right of the word "Brush," and choose a soft-edged brush from the Brush Picker that's about the size of the largest part of the eyebrow.

Step Four

Begin painting over the eyebrows, going from right to left. As you paint, press-and-hold the Left Bracket key to make your brush smaller as you trace the eyebrow. Painting on the layer mask reveals the Multiply effect, darkening the eyebrows.

Step Five

The final effect will probably be too intense, but you can fix that by lowering the Opacity of the Multiply layer in the Layers palette.

Step Six

Now, on to the eyelashes: In the Layers palette, click on the Background layer. Get the Lasso tool again and draw a loose selection around the eyes, making sure your loose selection fully encompasses the eyelashes.

Step Seven

For the lashes, you're going to repeat what you just did to the eyebrows, so once the eyes and lashes are selected, press Command-J (PC: Control-J) to copy them to their own layer. Change the blend mode of this layer from Normal to Multiply, which darkens the entire layer.

Step Eight

Hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer Mask icon again to add a black-filled layer mask. Just like the eyebrows, doing this will hide the Multiply effect. With your Foreground color set to white, paint along the base of the eyelashes to darken that area using a very small, soft-edged brush. Also paint along the top eyelid at the base of the eyelashes. (Incidentally, we put the eyelashes and eyebrows on separate layers so you can control the Opacity of each individually.)

Tip

To enhance individual lashes, use the same technique. Just zoom in close on the eye using the Zoom tool (Z), and then with a very, very small brush, trace at the base of the eyelash, following its contours to darken it. You may have to use a 1- or 2-pixel brush. If the effect seems a bit too intense, just lower the layer's Opacity.


Before

After



    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

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