Coffee With Morgan: Making Eyes "Pop"

I am really excited to be introducing you to a fellow Texan, mom of two, and gifted photographer and photo-editor; Morgan Kervin. Morgan lives in Central Texas (Fort Hood/Killeen area where my lil' sis Heather lived for some years) and is a professional photographer. I actually "met" her in my Flickr CoffeeShop Group. This thread made me realize she knew more than me (like most of the people who post over there...), so I mentioned I would love for her to be a guest on my blog and guess what, she said YES!

So I am thrilled to be posting her first "of what I hope becomes many" tutorial on enhancing brown eyes. This tutorial will work in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. I get many emails asking for advice on how to make brown eyes "pop", and Morgan's technique is excellent.

Morgan's bio is at the end of this post and please check out all of her links. She is a very gifted photographer AND simply adorable. ;-)


I think the eyes are the most important part of a portrait and I have the most trouble with brown eye detail. After a lot of experimenting I found a great way to showcase those lovely brown eyes.

Let's start with the shot straight out of the camera
You can see the eyes are dull and mostly the same from pupil to outline. The first thing I do is to run CoffeeShop Perfect Portrait. I set my levels at the following:


Once the action has run, and I utilize the eye define layer and I flatten the image so I can start editing the eyes alone.

I select my magnetic lasso, feathered at 2 (or whatever number you feel suits you best). I outline the eyes, make sure the add button is selected for the lasso.


Once you have selected both eyes Ctrl+J to put them on their own layer, so nothing else in your photo is effected. I hide the main image so I can focus on the eyes only. Select your dodge tool and you want to select highlights and set the exposure to about 30. You want the brush to be soft and just the right size to get just around the pupil, and brush around about 3 or 4 times.


Once you have done that on both eyes, keep your dodge tool out and select midtones and set your exposure to about 20. Select a larger brush big enough to cover the rest of the iris. Brush over both a few times to lighten.


Next you select the burn tool. Set it to shadows and exposure to about 10. Brush over the pupil and around the outline of the eyes as well as any shadows you see in the iris color itself. Do this a few times until the black is dark enough to your taste.


Then you want to do a high pass on the eyes. You go to filter>other>high pass.



I set the high pass to 20, but it is completely adjustable depending on the look you are going for, I just prefer 20 :)


Once you run the high pass you want to set that layer to soft light so it blends well with the rest of the portrait.



Finally you bring back the rest of the portrait, thus revealing the beautiful brown eyes with details.


The final edited image


The best is the comparison shot from the original to the edited version. The eyes make the portrait so much more intense.



Meet Morgan! I am from a small town in southern Texas, but now live in central Texas, Fort Hood/Killeen area to be more specific. I am a stay-at-home mom and do photography in my spare time. I am married to a wonderful man that I was lucky enough to meet and be able to spend my life with. We have two beautiful children, Payton 4 years old & Amelia 1 year old. The thing I love the most about photography is that you can take an intangible moment in time and make it last forever. I don't have any formal training, I just learn from experimentation and research.
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