Off Topic - How to get rid of devil eyes...

artaxerxes
artaxerxes Posts: 612
edited February 2010 in Commuting chat
OK, I took quite a few photos at a friends wedding last weekend but most of the shots came out with red-eye. Does anyone here know of decent and free software that gets rid of red-eye for you?
By the way I wasn't the official photographer, so these are just personal shots.

Comments

  • UndercoverElephant
    UndercoverElephant Posts: 5,796
    Picasa is pretty good for casual users.

    http://picasa.google.com/features.html
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  • Buckled_Rims
    Buckled_Rims Posts: 1,648
    The very cheapest is Windows Photo Gallery and the "Fix -> red eye" feature. Free on Windows Vista.
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  • artaxerxes
    artaxerxes Posts: 612
    Cheers, I've tried Picassa, but that simply replaced the red-eye with green-eye.
    Unfortunately I am still on Windows XP...
  • davis
    davis Posts: 2,506
    There's a free browser-based editor at Picnik which does a reasonable-ish job of removing red-eye.
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  • CiB
    CiB Posts: 6,098
    Have a read through this list from the tech guy at The Telegraph's web site. Gimp is good but has a learning curve; IRFANVIEW often pops up as a recommended viewer but red-eye?Not sure. Have a squint through anyway and see what's what.

    http://www.pctoptips.co.uk/software.html#PICTURE%20&%20IMAGE%20EDITING
  • greg66_tri_v2.0
    greg66_tri_v2.0 Posts: 7,172
    Photoshop Elements is very good, and comes (came?) bundled with certain Dell computers.

    In the long run, the way to avoid it is to get the flash unit as far away from the axis of the camera lens as possible. There's a reason pros use tall flashes, and/or flash mounts.
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  • artaxerxes
    artaxerxes Posts: 612
    Thanks for the info guys.
    I was using using a no frills Canon A610 digital, so quality shots were going to be hard in the darkish room.
  • symo
    symo Posts: 1,743
    Online editting article from the ever brilliant lifehacker site

    http://lifehacker.com/5319857/photo-edi ... s-and-more
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  • oscarbudgie
    oscarbudgie Posts: 850
    +1 for Photoshop Elements
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  • shouldbeinbed
    shouldbeinbed Posts: 2,660
    CiB wrote:
    Have a read through this list from the tech guy at The Telegraph's web site. Gimp is good but has a learning curve; IRFANVIEW often pops up as a recommended viewer but red-eye?Not sure. Have a squint through anyway and see what's what.

    http://www.pctoptips.co.uk/software.html#PICTURE%20&%20IMAGE%20EDITING

    Both are very good. The Gimp is pretty much Photoshop and very user friendly, Irfanview is a touch more limited in its pallette options and pitched at someone a bit more technical, but exceptionally good and plenty enough to clear red eye.
    another very good one is Paint.net, again a near clone of Photoshop but for me the Gimp just has the edge over it (Gimp is slow to open in comparison though)

    all are free but are completely professional and slick products, very well worth a donation to keep the development going.

    Red eye is light reflecting off the blood vessels in the back of the eye through the pupil:

    there a few ways to avoid causing if your camera doesn't have a red eye reduction flash option (basically it pre flashes and shrinks the pupils) they all amount to close the pupil & reduce the red.

    You can shine a torch or a light at the subjects first or take a few flash photos in very quick succession, if you want them in a particular place then have them mingle somewhere brighter first and then get them in and snapped quickly before their eyes adjust properly.

    If you're printing the photos out you can simply colour the red eye in with a fine fibre tip pen, or touch it up with a fine brush and ink/paint. think Pointillism rather than scribbling or brush strokes.

    I used to work for Kodak and spent many a happy afternoon spotting out dust, hairs and red eye in happy snaps
  • artaxerxes
    artaxerxes Posts: 612
    OK I think I'll give the online tools a go and if that doesn't work I'll try GIMP. Thanks again!
  • downfader
    downfader Posts: 3,686
    Personal fave is Elements for cheapy s/w. A fair few people use Gimp too. Video tutorials are on youtube if you get stuck.

    I use Nikon NX2 myself, but then I dont get any problems with red eye with the SLRs.

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