The red-eye effect when using flash photography is so common that most indoor photos taken with the built-in flash require some processing.
Because this problem is so common when using flash photography, almost every camera sold today has built-in red-eye correction. Whether it is a low-end popular camera (red-eye correction is a fixed function) or a DSLR (you can set whether to turn off this function), red-eye correction is a standard feature on many digital cameras. However, automatic red-eye correction tools in some cameras and certain quick fixes found in Photoshop can cause more problems with your photos.
We can introduce using the Red Eye Tool or using the Channel Mixer, or many other fixes to fix the red eye problem, but if the red eye is so severe that you can't restore your natural eye color by simply removing the red from the eye, We can use an optimal method to slightly restore the eye color after removing the red. Try the following steps.
1. In Photoshop, create a selection around the eye and feather the selection with 5 pixels or more. In some cases it may be necessary to increase the feathering amount to 15 pixels. The amount of feathering applied depends on the resolution of the image and the severity of the red-eye problem. If you are not successful at first, restore the file and try a different amount of feathering.
In Figure 7-38, the red eye problem is so severe that it is impossible to determine what the original eye color should have been. In this example, you need to remove the red eye and restore the eye to its natural color.
Figure 7-38
2. Select "Image"_"Adjustment"_"Channel Mixer". In the Channel Mixer dialog box, you can see that the Red channel slider is at +100%. Drag the slider to 0 (zero), or enter 0 (zero) in the Red channel text box. Drag the "Green" and "Blue" sliders to 50%, as shown in Figure 7-39.
Figure 7-39
Usually an adjustment of 50% solves all problems, but too much cyan appears in the editing area. This will remove the red color from the image selection (see Figure 7-40).
Figure 7-40
3. To restore the eye color, you may need to open a second file that includes the natural eye color. If you take many photos of your subject, there may be images where the red-eye problem is less severe and show the true eye color. Open this image and click the Eyedropper tool to capture this color and make it the new foreground color.
4. Close the second file and select the Color Replacement tool in the Tools palette.
5. Use the Color Replacement tool to paint on the iris in the eye to restore the natural eye color. In Figure 7-41, we fixed the red-eye issue and then made additional color and tint corrections for brightness, as well as color correction.
Figure 7-41