Red Eye - Possible Cause

Hi Everyone,

I've put this in the Optio section as my observation is about red eye reduction using an Optio 60.

I've been taking all my shots of daughter #1 (the queen of red eye) through photoshop to remove this curse.

I have a second daughter - same big blue eyes - who never displays red eye.

Finally, I discovered a shot of both of them cheek-to-cheek, in which Melissa's eyes were perfect and Sandra's looked like the brakelights on our van.

I photoshopped Sandra back to human, and liked the shot enough to make it my screensaver.

That's when I noticed the extreme difference in pupil sizes!

It appears that Sandra's pupids don't react fast enough to the preflash.

Has anyone else come across this?

When shooting film, with a bounced flash, Sandra's eyes STILL come out red. This kids got RETINAS!

She's going to force me into photofloods and softboxes.

Cheers

It's a fact that some people are much more prone to Red-eye than others.

Pupil size could well be the cause, coincidentally when at the opticians last week I was told I have more than normally large pupils and I always look like the devil when I have my photo taken !!!

Simon

on an aside note:
one of those two has better night vision than the other.....

I can suggest that turning up the ambient light, or adding a video light to your kit will dial down those "evil" pupils! (now, for those that have mother-in-laws with glowing red eyes...try Holy Water first....better safe than sorry.).

Thank's Simon and Don,

Sandra of the bigger pupils does, in fact, love to drive at night - right over to the coven in the glen. Nah, just kidding - she's actually a musician and a real sweet kid (takes after Mom).

I'll have to look at them under normal light to see if there is a difference in their "resting" pupil sizes.

The small movie light is a great idea Don, and I just happen to have one which I'll toss into the ol' kit bag.

I'll also shoot Sandra digitally rather than on film. Photoshop is a lot easier to use and more effective than those red eye pens - which are almost impossible to find any more.

Cheers and Very Happy Holidays!

you're welcome mac....the small battery operated video lights are cheap, have a slightly warm color balance and can be used in place of flash units...
of course people squint, at the bright light at first, but they adjust.

surprisingly good in low light, but amazing for people shots, outdoors, in bright sun...(fill light situations, with the added bonus of warming up your skintones, while not affecting your background colors!)

Cool! (No, Don said WARM, stupid!)

Now I can't wait to try it out.

Thanks!

Hi Mac,

are you sure she hasn't been raiding your single malts?

Seriously though, something everybody may find useful in the coming days; is that when people have had a few, their pupils will react far more slowly to bright light. This means that all the merry people will be far more prone to red eye (and red nose??? ), and those on soft drinks will be far less likely to. So if any of you intend to take party photos of drunk relatives, get them admiring the tree or someone's presents, so they don't look directly into the lens. Bounce will help, but not as much if they're totally gone.

Cheers

Liam

Liam,

When I first started noticing this, I harkened back to a misspent youth, and was about to have her tested for recreational drug use, but she was 4!

Her cousin shows the same symptoms (actually worse). There is a shot of him with his colledge football team - he's the one in the back row, on the extreme left side - glowing. It was simply a fill flash, but he was the only guy returning fire.

Do you think there is a difference with eye colour - blue more prone to this than brown?

I agree about your observations regarding libation. Fortunately, my relatives pass out easily, so eyes closed. Real flattering.



All The Very Best to You and Yours

I do believe I read somewhere that light colored eyes are more pronounced, maybe the explanation was simply contrast.....as in red will pop next to blue, but blend in better with brown....

Ok, so why is it green-eye with cats?

reflective cells on the back of thier eyes geared to enhance thier night vision.....and possibly they are all alcoholics.....

Does the Red eye removal work for the green eye cat :

I haven't tried it yet, but "normal-eyed daughter" who is quite interrested in photograpy, and owns a yellow-eyed back cat says it is REALLY a tough task.

I think when you deliniate an area for photoshop to work on, and say that the eye colour is, it looks for the red to replace with black.

The cat's eye reflection is green so........

Anyway, cat's are supposed to look evil - right?

in photoshop make a selection around the pupil, and select the color (using the wheel chart) from the eye....the color on the opposite side of the color wheel will be the complimentary (think magenta to cancel green), and set your opacity to 10% and paint out the green

Generally red-eye reduction looks for red colors. Some software such as PaintShop has an animal "red-eye" reduction which actually works fairly well and has some really nice functionality.

Basically Don's tip gives the best results. i.e. just make the selection yourself.
Although I generally just desaturate the color rather than pay with color wheels. (not good with moving parts, myself). Then adjust lightness to taste.

I never found the automatic red-eye any easier. I spend more time playing with getting good results than if I just simply worked from scratch.