Little Girl

[Mike S.]

Good day Judy,

I used the white brush, I painted several layers of white and adjusting the opacity after each layer.  After I got it the best I could that way, I did a final Hue-Saturation Adjustment Layer, decreasing the saturation, inverting the mask, painting back the adjustment with the paintbrush.

Mike S.

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Eyes are dangerous to enhance this way, so beware  :police:.

By lightening the sclera, you got rid of most of the shadows that define the spherical shape of an eyeball, you should watch out not to do that.
Also very young children's sclera's actually look a little blue most of the time because the underlying pigments show through.

In the development of the embryo, the sclera is derived from the neural crest.[3] In children, it is thinner and shows some of the underlying pigment, appearing slightly blue. In the elderly, fatty deposits on the sclera can make it appear slightly yellow.

So if I were you, I'd suggest dropping the opacity of your layers a little so that it only passes through about 20%-30%.

[Mike S.]

Jonas,

By all means if you like the first one better please use it and disregard the Finish 3.  The opacity on each layer was 20% or less.  I am still learning and must rely on Masters like yourself to set me on the right track. 

Mike

[Mhayes]

Jonas, thanks for a very interesting tip and the reasoning behind it.

Margie

[Hannie]

Great topic, I was leaning towards the blue version myself.

Hannie

[Judy]

Interesting Jonas, though I must say I have never seen a little kid with the whites of their eyes as blue as the Rev 2 was.  It got bluer as it went along.

Are you saying painting on a color layer and having that layer at 20%? 

I have always found it difficult (and someone else asked this question without it ever getting answered really) to lighten (or change the color) of something by painting in a color layer if the beginning is darker. 

Judy

[Jonas.Wendorf]

What I was saying was that the result as it now is should be blended at about 20% into the old version.
So if you have more than one layer, group them and change the opacity of the group to 20%.

If you're having trouble desaturating and lightening at the same time, one trick (that I wouldn't recommend for bigger changes but might work in small areas) would be to use a new layer in "Soft Light" mode, pick a color from the blue eye whites and go to your color picker.
In it shift the H value 180° and make sure that the B value is above 50% (sth. like 70-80%) with low S value (about 10% at max). Now when you paint with this color over the whites, they'll not only lighten, but in the same process desaturate.

Another technique that I use more frequently is to create a new layer in "Color" mode and paint with whatever color you want to have in that area.
Now go to this layer's layer styles and in the advanced blending options uncheck "Blend clipped layers as group". Now clip a curves adj. layer to this layer in which you can modify the tones in whatever way you want :-).
(What the "Blend clipped layers as group" option does is first blending both layers together and then blending the result in the blending mode of the base layer - which would be color and therefore couldn't affect luminosity.)

[Judy]

Thanks Jonas,

You did explain the 20% and the others are things I will have to try.  You are definitely a learning experience!

Meanwhile I sent the two pix to a photoshopping buddy of mine and he is regaling me with Dune Freeman eyes -- apparently it is a science fiction book that has quite a cult following. 

4 learning experiences (you had 3) for the price of one small comment!

When I did it, I only played with the blue portion of the eye, not the rest of it, so I was not affecting the whole eye.  A color layer just didn't work with the blue that was there.  Soft light was hard to control the white for me, so I desaturated with the soft light grey layer, and then colored white with a color layer.  My technique had the disadvantage of not touching the blue specular highlight on the pupil.

I have gotten into similar situations on the skin having too much blue, and trying to get that out without making the skin a very strange color.  Can't just paint over it as blue plus flesh color is ugly brown it seems.  I am not nearly as good as you with Hue/saturation -- though perhaps it is not what you would use for blue blotches anyhow.

Judy

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Judy,

as you know, I tackle problems one by one from multiple sides, so I would first try to use Hue/Saturation, Curves or a "Color" mode layer to get rid of the blueish tone alone and after that I would finetune the luminosity using dodge & burn on a "Soft Light" layer.
However you might want to try a technique used by Amy Dresser for these spots that might work better for you depending on your workflow: use a feathered lasso selection of the spots, create a curves adj. layer and just push & pull the individual color curves into each direction to the extremes. Than back off and tune in just the right settings. That might work extremely well once you get the hang of it, for me it's too little control (but then again I'm quite a control-freak when it comes to Photoshop ;)).

[Bambi]

I always used the Curves method Jonas mentioned. But after I started using his Soft Light layer technique, I switched to his way.

This is a great thread, full of useful information. I've made notes. Jonas, you always dazzle me.

Bambi