How to Retouch Eyes in Adobe Photoshop CS6 Tutorial

Fresh, young, healthy, glossy eyes — that's what we want. 

Glowy, overly saturated eyes that look like a cat on Halloween moonlight — no thank you.

Here's my technique for 99% of the eyes I retouch....

1) Create 'Gray Layer' [Color: Gray] [Mode: Soft Light]

2) Dodge (midtones [30% opacity]) in white of eyeball 

3) Dodge (midtones [30% opacity]) light in iris — only where the light is catching

4) Burn (midtones [25% opacity]) around the dark circle around the iris 

5) Burn (midtones [25% opacity]) over eyelash line

*Brightening the midtones of the eyeball = glossy (NOT glowy)

**Darkening the dark circle around the iris makes the eye look young and healthy

***Darken eyelashes helps the eye 'pop'

****ALWAYS compare your retouching to the original image to make sure you haven't gone overboard! The change should be so subtle you hardly even notice it — you've gone too far if someone else can guess what you've done to the photo. Less is ALWAYS more with retouching.