Removing under-eye circles

[JosShavaughn]

I searched to make sure this wasn't a repost and didn't find anything.

But I'm editing some pictures, and the girl has pretty noticeable dark under eye circles and I was wondering what's the best way to remove those w/ natural looking results?

[hue-e]

I use the clone tool for any/all wrinkles/dark circles/etc.

[JosShavaughn]

It's not coming out like I want, it doesn't look very natural b/c the colors aren't matching correctly.

[Tom]

Try taking down the opacity.

[BenE]

Originally Posted by JosShavaughn

I searched to make sure this wasn't a repost and didn't find anything.

But I'm editing some pictures, and the girl has pretty noticeable dark under eye circles and I was wondering what's the best way to remove those w/ natural looking results?

I copy and paste a large area around the eye, using the lasso at 0 px feather, then work on the top layer only.
Then I use the clone tool usually "lighten" (but sometimes normal) mode at 30% opacity and 30 flow. The clone tool is at 0% hardness.

I over-retouch (for lack of a better word) and then I erase anything that has obscured the eyelashes, and decrease the opacity of the top layer until some of the bottom , un-retouched layer shows.

I also sometimes slightly erase some of the top layer in other areas. It depends on several factors. It takes a bit of time to get it right sometimes.

[hue-e]

try making a new layer (copy of the original), set it to luminosity, then dodge/burn that layer. keep your exposure at 15 or below, soft brush and work it in increments. you should be able to lighten/darken the area to come pretty close to the same value.

[ndsimm]

CS4 and CS5 both have the patch tool that is listed under the healing brush that works well for me if you have either of those versions

[Some Idiot]

here is a video that explains it fairly well

YouTube - Contributor Tutorials: How to remove dark circles from under the eyes

[MicWayWal]

I perform the retouching somewhat similar to the YouTube video. Here are some tips he did not cover.

Do your retouching in ONE pass over the line. The more strokes you go over the line the muddier it will look and the texture of the skin will be lost.

I usually start with a brush opacity of 50% and do both eyes. If that removes too much, back up in your history, decrease the brush opacity and stroke again. If not enough is removed increase your brush opacity. Somewhere between 30-50% is what usually looks best with women, 20-40% with men, 50-70% with children.

You want to Start your sampling of the clone tool where the bridge of the nose meets the cheek, then start the cloning directly above where the circle starts closest to the nose and make ONE pass across the line.

Don't flatten the layers as the video. Save the layers as a PSD file, so if doesn't look right or your client objects you an EASILY go back and correct it.

Another way some do this is to fully remove the line in the new layer using 100% brush opacity, then adjust the opacity of the layer until it looks right. I don't do this because I have other retouching on the new layer and it would affect that too. But I thought I would mention it if that is all you are changing.

[picman]

Quick and dirty- speed over quality. Better with a pressure sensitive tablet.
Healing brush sampled off the cheek, one swipe across the dark area, Shift+Ctrl+F to bring up Fade command, roll back to 40-50%.

[dmcantrell]

Here are some online tutorials from my crib sheet :

Facial Touch-ups -->
Lunacore Photoshop Training - Beautify a Face tutorial (part 1/7)

Portrait Retouching -->
Dr Brown's Photoshop Laboratory - Portrait Retouching Experiments | Adobe TV

[tertius]

tag for later

[LadyShutterBug]

I also like the patch tool.