My digital camera, Canon S400 Power Shot, produces “red eye” in some of the photos. I have made settings that I think help that, but it doesn’t. How can I either avoid getting the red eye, or find a program that will fix it after I put them in the computer? I have MS Picture it! 99, but it doesn’t do a really clean job. Also, Irfanview does red eye, but also not a really clean job. It leaves grey areas around the eye.
Two factors contribute to red eye: light source close to the camera (e.g. on-camera flash), and a wide-open pupil. If the room is bright enough, just don’t use the on-camera flash. (And learn to hold the camera steady to avoid blur - hint: elbows firmly pressed to your body, camera held firmly, but the finger pressing the shutter should be relaxed.) If your camera can use an external flash, that would help. Also you can try to cause the subject’s pupils to contract; that’s what the “red-eye reduction” feature does, by firing the flash before actually taking the photo.
Most point and shoots these days have a “red eye” reduction mode when you use the flash (I’m not sure, but I’m guessing your S400 has this mode). It is really annoying to the subject, however, and most people opt not to use it.
Red eye is caused when the pupils dilate - when there is low light. So to avoid it, either take pictures where there’s lots of light (indoors) with or without flash, or use the “red eye reduction” mode on your camera.
But chances are that you will still invariably end up with some shots with red eye. The best tool for redeye (and any image enhancement for that matter) is Photoshop. It is a bit expensive, but it is extremely powerful. Red eye correction is just one of the many things you can do to tweak your images. So if you’re shooting digital, it is well worth the investment.
Once you have Photoshop, a quick search will yield tons of Photoshop tutorial sites on the web. And each will likely have a (different) technique on how to remove the red-eyes. (That’s part of the power of Photoshop, there is never only just one way to do something).
Photoshop Elements is just as good as the full Photoshop CS for 99% plus of what most people need from a photo editing program. It is considerably cheaper and sometimes comes free with digital cameras, scanners etc.
If you have a free copy of Photoshop, fine, but if you have to pay for it, Photoshop is a horrible choice for a beginner. It’s outrageously expensive and way too hard to learn how to use well. Get Paint Shop Pro. It is just as powerful, has a much more intuitive interface and costs about $100. You can get a fully functional 30 free trial. It also has a built in red eye removal utiltiy that lets you perfectly correct for red eye.
Or Picasa. For free. From Google.
Some people are more prone to red eye than others. I once shot a small group of women and one in particular had consistent red eye despite using studio flash and umbrellas which we positioned well away from the camera.
I second Picasa. Normally I use PSP or Photoshop, but Picasa is really good for simple photo manipulation (including redeyes).
The SD400 (I have the SD300) are very prone to red eye. All ultra compact cameras have this problem due to the close nature of the lens and flash, but the SD line seems even worse than most. None of the redeye reduction modes seem to do much good, and my SD300 can’t take a remote flash. I think there is a slave flash that will work with the SD400 and SD500.
Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to solve the problem in software. It’s a pain to have to use it, but it works quickly and painlessly. I think the Canon photo software also has the feature.
I third Picasa. Just hit one button, draw a box around each eye, and poof! No more red-eye.
And did I mention FREE?
Well, there may be easier ways to fix it, but if you do have access to Photoshop, i recommend trying this method of getting rid of red eye. It looks a little complicated at first, but once you’re used to it, it really is a snap and it works fabulously.
Thanks for all your help I have set the camera for red eye reduction, but it must be inherent for this camera to give red eye when using flash indoors, especially when there isn’t much natural light. I do have picassa and haven’t tried removing red eye with it, but I will try it to see what happens. I will surely let all of you know when I have tried it. Right now, I don’t have any more red eye photos to process.
Red-eye occurs because the camera (digital or otherwise) is capturing light reflected from the back of the subject’s eyes. “Red-eye reduction” is nothing more than the camera briefly flashing a bright light (sometimes called a pre-flash) before the picture is taken – the person sees the pre-flash, his pupils contract, and there’s less reflection when you take the picture an instant later.
I use the red eye reduction/pre-flash, and never had a problem with red-eye. Now if only I can keep my hands steady for those indoor shots…
I second the idea of Paint Shop Pro for removing red eyes. It has a really nifty feature, where you basically can select any color iris and pupil and paste it right over the red eye. it is very easy to customize, and doesn’t require any sophisticated knowledge to use.
I found a good free program that eliminates red eye. It is: Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition. It is easy to use and does other things also.
“The S400’s enhanced red-eye reduction works dramatically better than in earlier Digital Elphs. Because of the proximity of the lens to the flash, pocket cameras are very prone to causing red-eye in living subjects; we found red-eye in most S230 and S330 flash shots. In comparison, the S400 had red-eye in a very small percentage of shots; it even worked in photos of infants, who are among the most susceptible of subjects.”
From:
A great source of no nonsence camera reviews.
Also some Cannon models have a flash reduction setting where you can turn down the flash intensity (not sure about that model).
You could also increase the shutter speed in low light reducing the need for a bright flash and that camera should meter correctly for it.
T
Now that ThrottleZ mentioned it, I believe some of the Nikon cameras will also digitally remove red-eye after the picture has been taken, probably by some sort of software algorithm/AI post-processing.
All the red eye reduction modes are of limited use when the lens is so close to the flash as is the case on these ultra compact cameras. The Canon redeye reduction is particularly useless, no matter what the product description says. The Nikon in-camera redeye reduction however has gotten some fair reviews.
Either way, it’s easy to remove in software, so that’s what I do. I don’t take that many close up people shots with flash.
That’s what i do too.
I don’t bother with the redeye reduction flash on my Minolta Dimage. For one thing, it doesn’t always work anyway. For another, a lot of people forget about the redeye reduction pre-flash and look away from the camera after it goes of, so by the time the real flash goes off and the picture is taken, they’re no longer looking at the camera.