Here is a quick tip to clean up the area underneath the subject’s eyes in a portrait.

Create a new layer by pressing Command + J (mac) Control + J (pc)

Choose the stamp tool:
Brush = 70% (soft brush)
Set mode to Lighten
Opacity = 40%
Flow = 100%

Press the option key to choose a sample point that you will use to brush over the dark circles. Make sure you choose a clean bright un-blemished skin patch to take your sample from. Now lightly paint over the dark circles underneath the eye and watch them dis-appear.

If the effect is too much, lower the opacity on the duplicate layer to taste. Always use a duplicate layer when retouching so that you can change the intensity of the effect as well as turn the layer on and off to see how your retouch is going.

You can also use this same brush to lighten blemishes, wrinkles or scars. Just make sure you sample a good area next to the bad area you plan on cleaning up.

I will be using this same image over the course of the next few weeks to show you how to professionally retouch an image. This first round takes the image from Raw through a basic eye clean up.

Here is the Raw image straight out of camera:

I opened it in Photoshop and adjusted the color and contrast with NIK Color Efex 3.0 – Pro Contrast Filter. However, you can also do it with a curves adjustment and a brightness/contrast adjustment although it is not as easy.

Using the technique above I quickly cleaned up around the eyes. You can go deeper if you like, I just wanted something more natural. The shoot was for The Farmers Daughter Hotel in Los Angeles and we wanted to keep a very natural approachable look. The “I just woke up, come hither look”

Here is a close up at 100% : Before and After

Note* This is just the eye clean up portion. In future lessons I will show you how to make the eyes pop, clean up skin, bring dimensionality to the body and a few other little tricks. Each time, I will show you the before and after.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 3:48 am by Ryan Phillips and is filed under Photography Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.