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Eliminate Eyeglass Reflections in Photoshop—07/02/12

Photoshop post-production tips for improved portraits of people wearing glasses

This Article Features Photo Zoom

No matter how diligent you are about eliminating reflections on eyeglasses while shooting, sometimes a stray highlight still sneaks through. This is especially true if you’re shooting with a large softbox or window light, and even more probable if your subject is wearing Coke-bottle lenses. Murphy’s Law dictates that if there's only one image that has distracting highlights on the spectacles, it is certain to be the best image from the shoot. That means you’ll have to figure out how to fix it. Luckily, Photoshop offers plenty of tools to help, and some of the most basic tools are perfect for this task. My favorite approach is to simply repaint missing information into the highlight area of the glasses. I find this highlight usually appears in the space between eyeball and frame, and unfortunately it often includes a number of colors, tones and textures that make the repair somewhat of a challenge.

I first start by duplicating my image onto a new layer. This way I can eventually go back and temper my results as needed, and I can easily toggle between before and after views.

Next I select a paintbrush and set it to approximately 30% opacity and 30% flow. By control-clicking on an adjacent area of tone I’d like to emulate I can select that color, and I can then begin painting with a soft brush to build up colors and tones similar to eyelashes, eyebrows and skin—depending on exactly what’s hiding behind that highlight. This method won’t completely cover a reflection, but it lays an ideal foundation on which to build.

Next I select the clone stamp tool, and with a stronger brush (approximately 50% opacity and flow) I click and paint again cloning from nearby areas to slowly build up tones and textures to match what would otherwise show where the highlight is obstructing. A little patience and a lot of clicks will eventually build up a pretty convincing replacement for the highlight.

Bear in mind that the area behind eyeglasses and close to the frames will tend to look a little bit darker than normal skin, so you can’t get sloppy with your selections and choose foreheads or cheeks. You’ll likely need to make more precise color selections and defined cloning points from the immediate vicinity of the eye.

In the end, subtle burning can help add realism where the highlight once lived, as can a color-based clone stamp to help blend the correction more realistically. You can also adjust the repaired layer’s opacity, or use a layer mask to selectively alter the opacity, and bring some of the highlight back into the glasses. It’s really a matter of taste, because sometimes a hint of reflection looks better than no reflection at all. Remember that even though we want the fix to look perfect, it’s probably not going to. And that’s okay; it doesn’t have to be perfect. It is, after all, just a little reflection in eyeglasses. Reflection cover-ups, even imperfect ones, usually blend seamlessly into the finished portrait.

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