how to get clear eyes ?

<p>how to get clear eyes in portraits ? i have seen some videos on enhancing eyes in Ps .. but i cant get crystal clear eyes ? do i need to have lighting equipment ? or do i need to have prime lenses ? i used 18-55 kit lens to take this pic<br /><br /><a href=" /><br />but i want to get like these <br /><br /><a href=" /><br /><a href="

<p>If you mean sharp eyes, you need to make sure that you focus on the eye itself and have sufficient depth of field to get the rest of the face in focus as well. It is especially difficult to get razor sharp eyes with autofocus on eyeglasses wearers, as you have another layer of reflective surfaces to go thru. I usually use single point focus or manual focus. By the way, in the examples you referred to, the second one is focussed on her eyelashes, not her eyes per se.</p>

<p>This can be categorized as tricks done with lighting. Studio vs. Outdoors can differ. In low light conditions the pupil tends to expand to make up for the dim light. Basically one trick is to shine a light (small flash light) into the eyes to contract the pupils and revel the color of the iris, prior to the shot. Outdoors this may already be the case by natural light providing the subject is not squinting. In either case you need to take advantage of light conditions. Some eyes will look better than others, it depends on the color and clarity of the iris.</p>

<p>I actually feel that composition also has a small part to play in this. Certain perspectives tend to drive the viewer to look at the eyes more.</p>

<p>I'm not sure what you mean by "clear eyes" but I think Visine makes a product by that name to take down the redness, ie, blood vessels. First remove the redness by using spot healing brush and where cant, the clone stamp. The examples you show strike me as a bit too white, but to whiten whites, make a duplicate layer, ctrl J, change blend mode from normal to screen which whitens, add a black mask, paint with white brush to whiten the whites, use opacity slider to fine tune. Watch out for having a uniform whiteness like is seen in your examples. I think it makes them look like night of the living dead, just not real. Instead with Nik Viveza, select the white of the eye, move brightness up and saturation down. This makes the change uniformly across the white so what was darker stays a bit relatively darker, giving form to the eyeball instead of making it flat. Remember the lighting example of drawing a circle on a piece of paper, its flat, then shading it and it becomes 3 dimensional. You can work the iris in Nik by selecting the iris,kicking up the contrast, brighten or darken, work saturation to taste and kick up the detail slider. In PS, on new layer, change to darken, black mask and paint the dark outer edge of iris darker. While you are in there, you can remove a second, lower catchlight and reposition the main catchlight or fill in the dark center of a ring light catchlight or do something about the photographer blocking the light as part of the catchlight like in your first example. Eyes will look stunning and you havent sharpened them yet or gotten really crazy by making them larger. </p>

<p>Your light is top sky light which makes shadows on faces and dark eyes, the other examples are made with open shade light which gives front light and makes a big difference. You could use big softbox as a fill light but thats a lot of trouble.</p>

<p>An ex-GF of mine assisted a fairly famous photographer for a year and he was obsessed with avoiding "dead eye", a lack of light in the eye. So I always think about that and just get the subject to face whatever soft source of light there is. You really don't need much light, it's all the positioning of the face. I also usually give the eyes a quick minor dodge in PS to minimize the colour cast you usually get in the whites of the eyes. </p>

<p>This is an issue I've been also struggling to define as well. You'll notice in the two photos you linked of the young girl, there are couple of notable differences from your own photo:</p>

<p>1. Image magnification is higher; i.e., the subject's eyes are larger, so they "appear" sharper.<br /> 2. The young girl has large eyes with exceptionally long eyelashes; i.e., the subject's eye-shape with lids open, and her elongated lashes contribute to the apparent increase in sharpness.<br /> 3. Size and shape of catchlight--the bigger, the "glassier."<br /> 4. The light quality, while fairly flat in all three examples, in the latter two, the source appears to be slightly more directional, lower, from the right, possibly from a softbox; this light reveals slightly more contour and contrast, filling in the eye sockets with a bit more light.</p>

<p>However, that said, I've come to think that this is mostly dependent on the particular subject's eyes, natural size of the eye with lids open, and eyelash length, than any other single factor (assuming focus is accurate, and enough depth-of-field has been acquired to include both the eyelashes and the surface of the cornea).</p>

<p>Excuse the cross-post, but allow me to re-post a couple of images I've recently posted elsewhere on photo.net:</p>

<p><img src="http://studio460.com/studio460/s150-1.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="467" /><br /> Sigma 150mm f/2.8 OS [full-frame]</p>

<p><img src="http://studio460.com/studio460/s150-5b.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="467" /><br /> Sigma 150mm f/2.8 OS [full-frame]<br /> <img src="http://studio460.com/studio460/s150-5a.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="464" /><br /> [100% crop]</p>

<p>In the first image, a catchlight of a 5' gridded octa softbox is fairly prominent, giving the eye a "glassy," "clear" look. This was achieved by having the softbox very close to the subject (about two feet).</p>

<p>In the second image (and, its 100% crop), while the cornea is sharp, the front edges of the eyelashes are soft, and lack the "clear" look you describe. Also, even though the magnification is high, and the eye is fairly large in the frame, the subject's eyes are still are no match for the apparent "sharpness" of young girl's eyes in your linked examples.</p>

<p>Again, even if shot with spot-on focus, enough depth-of-field, and plenty of light into the eye, my subject's eyes still lack the apparent "clarity" of your linked photo examples. Again, I think this is in large part due to the particular characteristics of the subject's eyes and eyelashes in your linked image, which are rather striking (her eyes naturally open wider), and pronounced (her eyelashes are simply longer).</p>

<p>I said:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The light quality, while fairly flat in all three examples, in the latter two, the source appears to be slightly more directional, lower, from the right, possibly from a softbox . . .</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Upon closer inspection, she appears to be lit with just open sky.</p>

<p>Additional notes:</p>

<p>5. The infant's eyes in your image has a much less "white area," with a larger proportion of the area occupied by the pupil and iris, which are darker, due either to natural pigmentation, lack of light, or a combination of both. These characteristics are shared my subject as well (large pupil/dark iris). In comparison, the young girl in the linked images has a lot more white area showing, relative to the size of her pupil and iris.</p>

<p>6. The young girl's light-brown iris exhibits a high level of chroma and luminance, and if in fact, they are higher in chroma and reflectance, again, it's the specific subject's characteristics contributing to a higher illusion of "clarity."</p>

<p>So, aside from technical issues, the key subject traits appear to be:</p>

<p>1. Eyelids which naturally open very wide.<br>

2. Non-dilated pupils.<br>

3. Smaller iris, in proportion to the white area of the eye, with high chroma and reflectance.<br>

4. Long, dark eyelashes.</p>

I find the lens itself makes a big difference when getting clear eyes. I use the Tamron 24-70 f2.8 vc and Tamron 70-300

vc. The vibration control helps a lot. Otherwise, use a tripod this will help increase sharpness.

 

Actually focus on the eyes with smaller aperture like f8. Large apertures may not get two peoples eyes all in focus.

 

Good quality lighting.