Red eye is a problem most photographers will have encountered at some time, a result of the light of a camera's flash being reflected by the blood vessels at the back of the subjects' eyes.
Fortunately many pixel-based image editors now contain tools specifically designed to counter this problem. Photo Pos Pro has a Red Eye Reduction tool which can be used to reduce this problem, as we'll see here in this tutorial.
1. Zoom In
© Ian Pullen
To produce accurate results, it is best to zoom in so you can concentrate on the eyes. Select the Zoom tool from the Tools Toolbar, represented by a magnifying glass, and this will display the zoom options in the Tools Dialog Box. If the Tools Dialog Box isn't visible, go to the View menu and select Toolbars and Dialogs and tick the Tools Dialog Box checkbox and click OK.
In the Tools Dialog Box, you will now see the Zoom options displayed and you can click on the magnifying glass with the '+' symbol a few times to zoom in. You may need to use the sliders to the right and bottom of the image to move the image around to make the pupils visible.
2. Select the First Pupil
© Ian Pullen
Before you can use the Red Eye Reduction tool, you need to select the pupils that you want to correct.
Click on the Standard Selection tool in the Tools Toolbar – square icon with broken outline. The Tools Dialog Box will now display the Selection Properties. You should select the Elliptical option at the top (the third from the left) or, if the subject is looking directly at the camera, the Circular option (fourth from the left) and tick the Smooth (Antialias) checkbox. You can now draw a selection that roughly matches the pupil of one eye and use the drag handles to adjust the selection until you're happy with it.
3. Select the Remaining Pupils
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You can hold down the shift key and add a selection around other pupils in the image, though note that you don't have the option to adjust further selections independently using the grab handles, which can make this more fiddly. If you are unhappy with a selection, just go to the Edit menu and select Undo.
Note: If you have trouble making further selections, you can adjust one pupil at a time – just make a note of the settings you use when applying the Red Eye Reduction tool so that you achieve similar results on each pupil.
4. Apply the Red Eye Reduction Tool
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Next you you go to the Filters menu and select Advanced from the Red Eye Reduction sub menu. In the dialog that opens, tick the Auto Preview checkbox so that you can see the effect of any changes as you make them.
You can experiment with the various settings, but in the illustrated example I made adjustments to the Reduction % slider, the Red T.H. slider, changed the Blend Mode to Multiply and increased the Opacity slider a little. In this case the last two changes had quite a significant effect. When you're happy with the result, click the OK button.
Note: If you can't get consistent results between the pupils, you may have to select and edit them one at a time.
5. View the Final Results
© Ian Pullen
You can remove the selections by going to the Selections menu and clicking Select None. Then if you click on the Zoom tool, you can use the Tools Dialog Box to zoom out so that you can see the final effect. While Photo Pos Pro's Red Eye Reduction feature isn't perhaps the most intuitive of the red eye tools on offer with free pixel-based image editors, it is generally effective at removing this common problem.
