Brightening the Whites of the Eyes

This is a retouch that I do to every single photo where the subject’s eyes are open. It seems like no matter how much light you get into the eyes during the shoot, the whites of the eyes end up off-white at best, but usually a light gray. This is one of those retouches that you just have to do once or twice—even if you think the eyes look white enough—because once you see the difference, you’ll do this every single time. It makes that big a difference.

Step One:

In this example, the whites of her eyes look almost gray (or off-white at the very least). So, start by clicking on the Create New Adjustment Layer’s icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choosing Levels (as shown here). By the way, it doesn’t ...

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