BRIGHTEN THE EYES

One way to quickly enhance a portrait is to drawattention to the eyes. The eyes are the mostimportant feature of the face and the key to apersons individuality. Whether the whites of the eyesare bloodshot or just appear dull, lightening themcan enhance the whole face. Brightening anddesaturating the white area draws the viewer rightinto the subjects personality.Lightening the whites of the eyes is a multistep andmultilayer process. You first select the whites andremove the redness using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Then you brighten the eyes with aCurves adjustment layer and change the blendingmode of the layers.People do not have perfectly white eyes, so thisadjustment requires not only making a preciseselection, but also viewing the entire photo as youapply the changes. Because the adjustments are onseparate layers, you can easily go back and modifythe adjustments to enhance the overall image andkeep the subject looking natural.

1 With the Background layerduplicated, click the Zoom tooland zoom in on the eye area.
2 Click the Lasso tool and draw aselection around the white areaof one eye.
3 Press and hold Shift and selectthe other white areas of the eyes.
4 Click Select Modify Feather.
5 Type 3 here and click OK.

6 Click the Adjustment Layerbutton.
7 Click Hue/Saturation.The Hue/Saturation dialog boxappears.
8 Move the dialog box so that youcan see the eyes.
9 Drag the Saturation slider to theleft to remove the redness.
10 Click OK.

11 Press (Ctrl+click) the layermask thumbnailtoloadthe selectionagain.
12 Click the AdjustmentLayer button.
13 Click Curves.
14 Click OK in the Curvesdialog box that appearswithout making anychanges.
15 Press Option+spacebar(Alt+spacebar) and clickin the image to zoomout and see the wholeface.


16 Click here and select Screen.
17 Click here and drag the slider to the leftto reduce the opacity of the layer until theeyes look brighter but still natural.