I tried searching both the SDMB and Google, but nothing that lent any insight.
Here’s the situation - in easily 95% of the pictures I’ve taken of her that have used the flash, my girlfriend has had bad red-eyes. Not just a little red dot like I’ll get sometimes, but big bright, full-iris, glowing red eyes. Sometimes with a bit of yellow or orange in them. This even happens when she isn’t looking at the camera - I have one where she is facing/looking about 70 degrees away from the camera, and her eyes are STILL red! I thought it was caused by the flash reflecting off your retina, so how could this happen?
“Red-eye reduction” on cameras doesn’t work.
Am I reduced to a life of photoshop digital reduction? Her eyes are hazel, does this have any bearing? (Or is just that she really is a devil-woman as I suspect???)
Seriously, I have two ideas - if the pics are digital, there are a bunch of software packages out there that can eliminate red-eye, sometimes completely automagically. (Don’t know where to get one off the top of my head though).
Also, I recently heard that Kodak was offering this special printing service where they do a bunch of magical image cleanup, including getting rid of red-eye. See if that’s a processing option.
Red-eye is caused by flash reflection off of the retina. Professional photographers avoid it by getting the flash as far from the cameras sight path as possible often separate from the camera.
Get a camera where the flash is further above or off to the side of the lens. Also try teaching her to focus slightly off center from the flash. For example if the flash is on the right side of the camera, have her focus on your left hand. This should reduce the red-eye immensely.
Professional photographers diffuse the light usually with those metallic-looking umbrellas, that’s attached to a cable to the camera, to avoid those awful flash effects like red-eye. But, there’s a cheaper, easier fix.
If you have a larger flash you can tilt upwards, like ones that connect to the camera, you can use a piece of white board (like poster board) to diffuse the light. You can do this by cutting a piece of the board into a 4x4 or 6x6 inch square, tilting the flash straight upwards or at a 45 degree angle, and taping the square to the back of the flash so the square faces the subject like a TV. The light from the flash bounces off the board and the ceiling, then onto the subject, giving the subject a bright, yet subtle glow from more than one angle. It’s a wonderful trick, if you don’t like the shadows and glares a straight flash gives. I’ve played with it and I think it’s the mose valuable tip anyone has told me about how to use the flash indoors. It probably works at night oudoors also, but the flash would only come in one direction.
Of course, with a 35mm, point & shoot camera it’s hard to diffuse the light without having to cover the flash with translucent or tissue paper.
Your girlfriend could suffer from the same thing as I do. My eyes are slow to react to changes in lighting, so my pupils remain open longer than most people and reflect more red-eye. “Red-Eye reduction” on cameras just dazzle me and make me squint, they don’t close my iris.
The diffusion and off-center flash suggestions offered already would usually solve the problem, as would the ‘look away from the flash’ idea. As you say, though, ski, her redeye shows up even when she’s looking 70° off center. The only way to make your demon lover look human, then, is to reduce the size of her pupils, and therefore, the amount of her retinas showing through and glowing in the light of the flash.
The redeye reduction on cameras is an attempt to do just this: before the shutter actually triggers, a series of small flashes go off (or maybe just a steady light, depending on the camera) in an attempt to get the subject’s pupils to constrict. Maybe girlfriend-of-ski has slow-reacting pupils like Futile Gesture. In such case, the second or so of the camera’s redeye reduction won’t be enough to noticeably shrink her pupils.
So use a flashlight. Before taking a picture, have her stare into the business end of a small flashlight for ten seconds or so (I’m thinking a little six-buck 2 AA Maglite would work fine for this purpose). Sure, it’ll be uncomfortable, but her pupils will be so far constricted afterward that the redeye effect should be completely eliminated.
Granted, she won’t be able to see much of anything for a minute or two after the photo’s done, but this is the price that must be paid for great photography.
Ignore all of this technical advice. Your girlfriend is obviously a vampire. You need to drive a stake of ash or whitethorn through her heart, cut off her head, and bury her with a holy wafer in her mouth.
That should take care of your problem. This one, anyway.
