Kimberly's Tutorial

I often have people ask me how I get such a sparkle in my subject's eyes. Sometimes the sparkle is there naturally with the right lighting, but then there are those times where I need to apply a little help. I do all my editing in Adobe Photoshop CS3, but this trick can be done in any of the Photoshop 7 and higher programs.
 
First select a photograph that you would like to use:
 
Then you will want to select your lasso tool:
 
Once you have selected the Lasso, you will want to zoom in on one of the eyes nice and tight with your navigational bar here. You will see a box on the top next to the word "Feather" that will probably be empty if you haven't used this before. I generally use 10 with mine when I am working with eyes, so it isn't too sharp around the edges.

Now you are ready to trace around the eye with the lasso tool:

Then you will want to select the filter button and scroll down and select the sharpen, and then unsharpen mask. Another window will open up on top with 3 boxes. When I am using the unsharp mask for eyes, I have mine set to Amount: 135 the Radius at 4 and the threshold at 3. Feel free to play around with this to get the desired results you would like. I always have the preview button checked as well, so I can see the difference right away before hitting the "OK" button. Once you have the sharpening how you would like it, click "OK".

Now you have one eye done and use your navigational bar again to do the next eye.

The entire process takes me about 5 minutes to do. Once you have it set up, it will take you no time at all to do. Here is the final photograph:

Have fun... and I hope this little tutorial helps produce some more sparkle to your photographs too!

Comments

[Glynis]

Love this trick! You can also use the selection brush too and do both eyes at once :O)

[Lisa J]

Great tutorial ~ I can't wait to give it a try on my photos.
Thanks!

[Suz]

This is very helpful! TFS!

[Tina Cloer]

Thanks so much for sharing your tricks, I love the way that looks. :)

[mandee]

i love this.... unfortunately i have pse 6! arghh!

[Aange]

wow thanks for this tuto !!

[Julie W]

Thanks for this tutorial...it works great!! I love learning something new :)

[Erin M]

I will definitely give this a try. I have PS but not very good at figuring out what to do with it! Keep the tutorials coming!

[heather garl]

Oh mY...thank you so much for sharing this...I have wanted to know how to do this and I have a much older version of photoshop, but this helped me a lot! Thanks so much!!!! {can you tell I'm really excited!}

[Michelle Clement]

Super-cool tutorial!! :) Thanks for sharing it!

[Danielle Flanders]

Kimberly, I just tried this on a photo and I love it!!!! Sharpening the eyes makes the photo look so much better. Thanks for the tip!!
xo
Danielle

[Brittani]

Love this!! Thanks, it works great!! <3