A Simple and Effective Technique for Removing Dark Circles Under Eyes

If you shoot almost any genre involving portraits of people, one of the most fundamental retouching techniques you'll want to know is how to convincingly remove dark circles from under eyes. This video will show you a quick, easy, and effective method for doing just that using Photoshop. 

Coming to you from Aaron Nace at Phlearn, this helpful video will show you how to remove those dark circles under eyes. We live in a high-demand, low-sleep society nowadays, and a lot of us to have a permanent set of these under our eyes (guilty as charged), so being able to successfully diminish them in post is an important skill to have. I often see shots where this is overdone or little regard is given to the way the facial geometry is brought out by the light and shadows, and this results in the cheekbone and area around the eye looking both flat and unnatural. As Nace demonstrates, it's fairly easy to target exactly the shadow areas and levels you need to, but then, you'll also need to bring back just a hint of color in the shadows you lifted. This method creates a much more natural and believable result. 

[via Phlearn]

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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3 Comments

Great tips, knowing how to remove these the proper way is critical because it can look really fake if you do it wrong

I prefer Dani Daimond's method- "How To Remove Bags Under Eyes Using Curves Using Photoshop"

right the dani method is better