Photoshop Tutorial: How to Digitally Enhance Eyes

A Guide for Beginners

Step 1) Take the sponge tool (located on the vertical menu bar on the second column and seventh row), choose the mode desaturate, and select the flow to be 100% (both are found on the selection bar at the top). Make sure the brush is one of the "fuzzy" ones (scroll down a bit on the menu) and not the completely solid circle. If the brush is a completely solid circle, it will be difficult to make the coloring accurate, it will also look more blended if the “fuzzy” brush is used. These brushes are found on the horizontal menu bar whenever you select a tool that requires a brush. The “fuzzy” brushes are found right below the solid ones.

Step 2) With the sponge tool go over the iris (colored part) and the pupil (black circle) of the eye. This will take out a lot of the color in the eye and allow you to change the color of it later.

Step 3) Take the dodge tool (located on the vertical menu bar, you will have to right click on the sponge you just used to get the dodge tool) and make range midtones and the exposure 100%. (Again use one of the fuzzy round brushes).

Step 4) With your dodge tool go over only the iris of the eye. This will make the eye brighter. Do not go over the pupil, otherwise you’ll make the pupil look unnatural and odd.

Step 5) Select a color for the eye to be using the sliding color menu. The color I chose to do was a blue. If you want to use the same color I did make the R: 100 G: 152 B: 182 (you can just type these numbers in). If you don't want to use this color, try sliding the cursor back and forth over the bar on any of the three bars. Remember the numbers next to the bars to keep track of the color.

Step 6) After I finished the eye, I also went over the skin around the eye with the desaturate sponge tool at midtones and at 58% to give it a more eerie affect.

Then you're done!

More tips and tricks: If you want the eye to be brighter or stand out more, go over the iris again with the dodge tool. You can also go over the iris with more than one color to create your own color affect on it.