Reducing reflection on eyeglasses

C Wright wrote in
news:BF3DBB45.38E1B%:

Does anyone have a technique for reducing a bright reflection on the eyeglasses of a portrait subject? I really don’t need or expect to eliminate the reflection entirely but would like to reduce it so that it is not so attention commanding. I am using PS CS2.
Chuck

common problem, work with the clone and patch tools and you can eradicate them.

—
f=Ma well, nearly…

"C Wright" wrote in message

Does anyone have a technique for reducing a bright reflection on the eyeglasses of a portrait subject? I really don’t need or expect to eliminate the reflection entirely but would like to reduce it so that it is
not so attention commanding. I am using PS CS2.

If you are taking the pictures, then use a polarizing filter.

The best way to fix this is to avoid it when taking the photo. Tricks like polarized filters if outdoors, and careful positioning of lighting (especially flash) if indoors, can almost eliminate it. If you end up trying to fix it in photoshop you are forced to create image parts where there is no image because of the bright reflection. Careful cloning and painting of the affected area is necessary to fix it in photoshop and this rarely produces perfect results, no matter how good the photoshop artist is.

—
Charley

"C Wright" wrote in message

Does anyone have a technique for reducing a bright reflection on the eyeglasses of a portrait subject? I really don’t need or expect to eliminate the reflection entirely but would like to reduce it so that it

is

not so attention commanding. I am using PS CS2.
Chuck

In article <BF3DBB45.38E1B%>, wright9
says…

Does anyone have a technique for reducing a bright reflection on the eyeglasses of a portrait subject? I really don’t need or expect to eliminate the reflection entirely but would like to reduce it so that it is not so attention commanding. I am using PS CS2.
Chuck

Chuck,

As others have suggested, the Clone/Patch Tools will help, but shooting with these reflections in mind, is the best, as the detail below the highlights is usually missing. Another tip might be to do several shots without the glasses, so you will have images of the eyes. They do not have to match perfectly, but close matches will help. Some shooters go so far as to remove the lenses from the frames, but with the expense of some glasses, and the lack of time to do this, it should be a last resort.

Hunt

On 9/2/05 11:10 PM, in article , "Hunt"
wrote:

In article <BF3DBB45.38E1B%>, wright9
says…

Does anyone have a technique for reducing a bright reflection on the eyeglasses of a portrait subject? I really don’t need or expect to eliminate the reflection entirely but would like to reduce it so that it is not so attention commanding. I am using PS CS2.
Chuck

Chuck,

As others have suggested, the Clone/Patch Tools will help, but shooting with these reflections in mind, is the best, as the detail below the highlights is usually missing. Another tip might be to do several shots without the glasses, so you will have images of the eyes. They do not have to match perfectly, but close matches will help. Some shooters go so far as to remove the lenses from the frames, but with the expense of some glasses, and the lack of time to do this, it should be a last resort.

Hunt

Hunt and others . . .
Thanks for the helpful suggestions. As a l-o-n-g time amateur photographer I know that I *should* have taken more care in composing the portraits. The suggestion of taking shots without the glasses so that I would have good images of the eyes to clone is a great suggestion. Using a polarizer is also a great suggestion. Unfortunately my portrait subjects were a very elderly couple, not very willing to spend much time posing, who are now over a thousand miles away – so I am stuck with some less than ideal shots that I am trying to make the best of!
To provide a little more information – my situation is that one subject has one-half of one eye obscured by the reflection. The other eye has acceptable detail. As you might guess my attempts to clone from a complete left eye to a partially obscured right eye have been considerably less than ideal. Thus my question about simply toning down the reflection. I had kind of hoped, perhaps in vain, that with so many Photoshop tricks in existence that there might be one for this situation.
Chuck

On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 14:28:15 GMT, C Wright
wrote:

I had kind of hoped, perhaps in vain, that with so many Photoshop tricks in existence that there might be one for this situation.

You problem is that you cannot create information that isn’t there, so no matter what you do with the reflection, it’s still going to be a reflection. Just treat it as a learning experience and remember for next time. Notice that a lot of portraits of people with glasses have the person in three-quarter view precisely to deal with the reflections.

—

Hecate – The Real One

Fashion: Buying things you don’t need, with money
you don’t have, to impress people you don’t like…

In article <BF3F1D2F.390CD%>, wright9
says…

On 9/2/05 11:10 PM, in article , "Hunt"
wrote:

In article <BF3DBB45.38E1B%>, wright9
says…

Does anyone have a technique for reducing a bright reflection on the eyeglasses of a portrait subject? I really don’t need or expect to eliminate the reflection entirely but would like to reduce it so that it

is

not so attention commanding. I am using PS CS2.
Chuck

Chuck,

As others have suggested, the Clone/Patch Tools will help, but shooting

with

these reflections in mind, is the best, as the detail below the highlights

is

usually missing. Another tip might be to do several shots without the

glasses,

so you will have images of the eyes. They do not have to match perfectly,

but

close matches will help. Some shooters go so far as to remove the lenses

from

the frames, but with the expense of some glasses, and the lack of time to

do

this, it should be a last resort.

Hunt

Hunt and others . . .
Thanks for the helpful suggestions. As a l-o-n-g time amateur photographer I know that I *should* have taken more care in composing the portraits. The suggestion of taking shots without the glasses so that I would have good images of the eyes to clone is a great suggestion. Using a polarizer is also a great suggestion. Unfortunately my portrait subjects were a very elderly couple, not very willing to spend much time posing, who are now over a thousand miles away – so I am stuck with some less than ideal shots that I am trying to make the best of!
To provide a little more information – my situation is that one subject has one-half of one eye obscured by the reflection. The other eye has acceptable detail. As you might guess my attempts to clone from a complete left eye to a partially obscured right eye have been considerably less than ideal. Thus my question about simply toning down the reflection. I had kind of hoped, perhaps in vain, that with so many Photoshop tricks in existence that there might be one for this situation.
Chuck

Chuck,

As Hecate states, where nothing exists, the only solution is to "paint/draw/ clone" it in. What might help a bit (reflection will STILL be there) is to do a Feathered Selection of the reflection (experiment with the Feather, and don’t hesitate to take the Selection into Quick Mask and run Gaussian Blur on it), then add an Adjustment Layer. Play with either Levels or Curves on this reflection. One thing to try is to reduce the contrast and move the white point, so that the reflection is grey. It’ll still be there, but not so prominent as before.

A device to move your flash above the lens axis will often help, as the light hitting the glass will reflect down and not back into the lens. If you’re using the flash on the camera, you cannot use this tip.

Hunt

On 9/4/05 10:46 AM, in article , "Hunt"
wrote:

Chuck,

As Hecate states, where nothing exists, the only solution is to "paint/draw/ clone" it in. What might help a bit (reflection will STILL be there) is to do a Feathered Selection of the reflection (experiment with the Feather, and don’t hesitate to take the Selection into Quick Mask and run Gaussian Blur on it), then add an Adjustment Layer. Play with either Levels or Curves on this reflection. One thing to try is to reduce the contrast and move the white point, so that the reflection is grey. It’ll still be there, but not so prominent as before.

A device to move your flash above the lens axis will often help, as the light hitting the glass will reflect down and not back into the lens. If you’re using the flash on the camera, you cannot use this tip.

Hunt

Thanks again for the suggestions. I have now essentially solved the problem! To fix the reflections and eye I (1), as you suggested above, made a feathered selection of the reflection and toned it down with curves then (2) cloned some parts of the glasses and face underneath over the worst parts of the reflections and (3) created a horizontally reversed copy of the portrait and from that was able to clone the one eye with acceptable detail from the reversed image to the original. Mix in a little Gaussian Blur and I’m in business! Actually I intend to do more than that but that takes care of the reflections and obscured eye problem.
Chuck