Graphic Media Knowledge

One of the secrets to really making eyes look captivating is to add contrast to the iris. It really brings out the color and depth of the eyes, without adding artificial color, and although it’s really easy to do, it delivers pretty amazing results.

Step One:
Here, our subject’s eyes look kind of flat, and almost hazy, because they’re really lacking contrast. So, to start off, we need to duplicate the Background layer by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J; or just drag the Background layer in the Layers panel onto the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the panel). Next, zoom in tight on the eyes. You’re going to be zooming in tight quite a bit when you’re retouching, so learning this quick way to zoom in can be a real timesaver: If you press-and-hold Command-Spacebar (PC: Ctrl-Spacebar), your cursor temporarily switches to the Zoom tool (the one that looks like a magnifying glass). Just click-and-drag this tool on the area you want to zoom in on (in this case, the eye on the right) and it zooms right into that spot. (Note: On a Mac, you’ll probably need to go to your Keyboard Shortcuts System Preferences and turn this system shortcut off first for it to work this way in Photoshop.)

Step Two:
Although there are a number of different ways to add contrast to a photo in Photoshop, this is probably the fastest and most efficient. At the top of the Layers panel, just change the blend mode of this duplicate layer from Normal to Soft Light (as shown here). This makes the entire image much more contrasty, but of course we don’t want all that—we just want her iris more contrasty. Don’t worry;we’re going to fix that in a moment.

Step Three:
Press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (it’s shown circled here in red). What this does is hides that really contrasty version of your image behind a black mask (so, it’s still there—you just can’t see it). The image now looks like it did when we first opened it (notice that her skin looks back to normal now?). Next, we’ll use the Brush tool to paint over the iris (and pupil) to reveal the supercontrasty version of it. So, start by getting the Brush tool from the Toolbox (you actually might as well get used to using the keyboard shortcut for the Brush tool— just press the B key).

Step Four:
Make sure that your Foreground color is set to white (since your layer mask is black, you’ll want to paint in the opposite color—white) and choose a small, softedged brush from the Brush Picker in the Options Bar. Begin painting over the iris and pupil, as shown here), and as you paint, the much more contrasty version of it is revealed, yet the rest of the photo remains untouched. If you make a mistake, just press the X key to switch your Foreground color to black, and paint over the area where you messed up to hide it again. When you’ve fixed your mistake, press X again to toggle the Foreground color back to white and continue painting over the iris (and pupil) to complete your contrast retouch.

TIP: Adding More Contrast
If, after painting in the iris, you think you need even more contrast, just duplicate the top layer. Since the eye is already masked, you’ll see just the iris and pupil become even more contrasty.

ANOTHER TIP: Using Curves
Instead of using a Soft Light layer to add more contrast to the iris, try an adjustment layer. Just click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Curves from pop-up menu. Then, from the Curves popup menu at the top of the Adjustments panel, choose Strong Contrast (RGB). Press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to Invert the layer mask and hide the contrasty version of your image behind a black mask. With your Foreground color set to white, get the Brush tool, choose a medium, soft-edged brush at 100% Opacity, and paint over the eyes to add lots of contrast (as seen here). Tweaking the contrast like this can tend to actually change the color of the eyes, so since we just want more contrast, change the layer’s blend mode from Normal to Luminosity, so you get the contrast, but not the color shift.