Vanquish That Green Eyed Monster!

Does the family pet or your furry friend give you the "green" eye? Many times when I take a picture of an animal, such as dogs, cats, birds, hamsters and the like, they are posing for the picture but they have these crazy green or yellow glowing pet eyes! That is the animal version of red eye that we sometimes get in our photos. Many animals eyes have an extra reflective layer which causes those pesky eyes to turn odd colors. Here is a tutorial for removing that reflective glow from your pets' eyes.

I'd like to introduce you to Harvi. Here he is in the original version of the photo I'll be working with for this tutorial. To start off, I've opened, cropped, and saved a new version of my photo so the original will be available if I need it in the future.

You begin by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the portion of the pet eyes that you want to fix. I prefer to use the Polygonal Lasso Tool, as the Magic Wand always seems to grab other areas that I do not need included from all over the picture. The Polygonal Lasso allows for a more detailed selection than the regular Lasso tools. Since animal eyes are not always round or oval and some times are just odd shape, I find that the Circle or Elliptical Lasso Tools are not the best choice for this type of selection. You will need to zoom in close to each eye to make your selections. Also, make sure the "Add to Selection" is chosen from the Polygonal Lasso Tool menu bar. Additionally, when using the Polygonal Lasso Tool on a rounded edge, to make sure it remains rounded, just use extra anchor points as you go around the curve.

With your picture selected in the Layers Palette on the menu bar, choose Layer > New > Layer Via Copy.

Next, rename the copied layer in the Layers Palette to "Eye Desaturate." With this layer selected in the Layers Palette, you will now desaturate the selection. Choose Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. This quickly allows you to change the layer's color to grey. The eyes should look similar to this:  

Next, duplicate the Eye Desaturation Layer and rename the new copied layer "Burn Tool and Blur Tool." Press D on your computer to make sure your foreground and background colors return to the default setting.

Choose the Burn Tool (a sub tool with the Sponge) and change the exposure to 50%. Now paint black on the eye all over. The white parts should remain white while the grey parts will darken. Paint until all areas are colored. They may look similar to my image, here:

In this picture, the eyes are too bright for my taste and I want to add a little more light reflection. I decided to lower the layer'ss opacity to 55%. You can play with the opacity in your photo so the color of the eyes is to your liking.

Sometimes there are harsh lines that you may feel need to be softened on the eye; you can use the Blur Tool to fix those. Choose the Blur Tool and change the strength to a range of 10% - 25%. With the "Burn Tool and Blur Tool" layer Selected, blur the edges that you want softened.

 

Merge your layers by right clicking on the top most layer in the layers palette. Choose Merge Layers. The Green Eyed Monster has now been vanquished, and your family pet is back to stay!

Before:

After:

Tips: 

• If you didn't get the whole area that needs to be color changed, you can modify your selection. Choose Select > Modify > Expand. When the submenu pops up, enter the number of pixels the selection should be expanded by. I've seen ranges from 1-8 used, but go by your picture and selection. 

• If you add catchlights back to the eyes or want to brighten certain spots, make sure to create a new layer. Use the white foreground color, and brush onto each eye carefully. 
• For cat's eyes, try using an oval shaped brush when adding reflections back to the eye.
• For my example of a cat, here is Nala. I used a white oval brush to add some bright spots back to the eyes. Cats' eyes are a little more difficult to on because of the shape of their eyes and pupils.

Before:

After:

Special Thanks to Photonut71/Kris for the picture of Harvi and MsBrad/Michelle for pictures of Nala.


This article was originally created by me for the ScrapMatters Newsletter.  You can sign up and recieve these too!


Thanks for visiting!
Jenn
(jk703/The Typative Scrapper)

Question... Feedback, Pretty Please?!

Hi Everyone... 


I have plenty of layouts I can share, A bunch of tutorials or just some random chattery... but I was wondering what would you all like to see, learn or chat about? Ideas for tutorials would be great, or techniques you want to learn... or just subjects that would interest you!  


Any comments or ideas would be great!!!  And appreciated! 
Thanks in advance, 
Jenn... jk703/The Typative Scrapper

Extractions! Sweet and Simple Basics!

HI Everyone! I'm back to share a tutorial for you! Today I will touch on Extractions, using the Magnetic Lasso Tool.

Extractions are a time consuming task, and it takes a lot of practice! I, by no means am an expert at this, but I have the basics down! There are basic things that you can learn how to extract, and after you learn them, you could extract anything! There are multiple ways to extract images: Extraction Filters and Presets, Magic Wand, Polygonal Lasso Tool, Pen Tool and the Erase Tool. My example will show how to extract using the Magnetic Lasso Tool. It is easy to extract an object but very difficult to extract hair from a windy day picture. I'm going to start with the basic extraction of a person. Meet my son, Shayne. :)

OK… first things first. Open your photo, Crop, and complete any photo treatments and photo corrections. Save this as a new file, so the original will be available later, if needed.

Double click on your photo layer in the Layers Palette and the little Lock will disappear on your background, changing the picture to a layer.

Next, Choose the Lasso Tool from the toolbar, and choose the sub menu tool: Magnetic Lasso Tool. This tool allows you to slowly go over the edges of the image you want to extract, adding anchor points throughout the edges. My example uses a feather of 3 pixels, and a width of 7 pixels between automatic anchor points.

With your photo selected in the Layers Palette, slowly move the Magnetic Lasso tool around the edge. You will see anchor points popping up as you move along. If you accidentally went the wrong direction, you can slowly move backward to remove the last anchor point, or you can press delete. Unfortunately, I'm unable to get a screen shot of the anchor points - they disappear when I try!

Once you have connected your anchor points, you will have the marching ants around your image, the portion that you want to extract.

Next, you can refine the edges by clicking on the Refine Edge in the Magnetic Lasso menu bar. The items I use the most are the Feather and Shift Edge. The feather gives the edges a softer look, and the Shift Edge helps remove unwanted background colors from the selections edges.

Before Feather and Shift Edge:

After Feather and Shift Edge:

After you've refined the edges, you will choose Select > Edit in Quick Mask Mode. You image will have the background in bright red, and the image will remain in color. The red will be the section that is to be removed. At this point, you will either add or subtract to your selection by using the Selection Buttons.

Selection Buttons:


Choose Select > Inverse. Your marching ants will have moved from around your selection to marching around the background. Press Delete. You image is extracted, and the background has been replaced with the invisible background. Right click on the image in the layers bar, and duplicate it to your layout or project.

Hope you get to trying this tutorial out soon! See… extractions aren't soooooo hard, right?! I hope this tutorial is clear, and if you have any questions, please let me know by leaving a comment or PM-ing me over at ScrapMatters. Enjoy your week!

This post was originally created by me for Chelle's Creations: HERE!

Jenn (jk703/The Typative Scrapper)