Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Fixing Red Eye with Picasa

Red eye is such a common problem in casual photography that cameras provide built-in tools to minimize it. For tips on how to avoid red eye when you take pictures, see Section 3.6.1.1. When all else fails, you can use Picasa’s Red Eye tool after the fact. For some photos it works well. With others, it may leave red remnants, but it’s almost always an improvement.

Use these steps to clear up that red eye:

1. Open the photo in Edit View (View → Edit View), and then click the Red Eye button on the Basic Fixes tab panel.

   The Red-Eye Repair tab appears, with written instructions, but no apparent tools to use.

2. Draw a marquee (selection box) separately around each offending eye.

   To eliminate red eye, use your mouse to draw a marquee around each demonlike eye. Picasa is quite forgiving if you include an eyebrow or part of a nose in this selection. It seeks out the bright red part of the image and tones it down by several degrees.

   Tip

   You may be tempted to zoom in to get a better view of the eyes you’re trying to fix, but Picasa doesn’t want to cooperate. See the box in Section 9.9 for a workaround.

3. Click the Apply button to accept the change.

   After you’ve exorcised the red to your satisfaction, click the Apply button to accept the changes.

WORKAROUND WORKSHOPZooming in Before Fixing Red Eye

Picasa’s Red Eye feature isn’t really a precision tool. It seems to work pretty well even if you draw a fairly wide marquee around your subject’s eyes. But what if you have a strong ...