TechNote

How to remove the red eye in pictures

Introduction

Fireworks MX 2004 has a new tool for removing the "red-eye effect" on photographs. The Red-eye Removal tool works by removing all the shades of red within a certain range that are within the selected area. These shades of red will be replaced by a neutral color range of gray and black.

Accessing the Red-eye Removal tool

The Red-eye Removal tool is grouped with the Rubber Stamp tool and the Replace Color tool. The Replace Color tool is the default tool in this grouping. Click and hold the Replace Color tool to access the other tools for that button.

Adjusting settings for the Red-eye Removal tool

As with most other tools, you can change the settings for the Red-eye Removal tool in the Property inspector, as shown below.

Size: The size setting controls the size of the tool cursor. You can set the size of the cursor between 1 - 100 via the slider. The default size for the Red-eye Removal tool is 13.
Shape: The shape setting controls the shape of the tools cursor. Choose between square or round. The default shape for the Red-eye Removal tool is round.
Tolerance: The tolerance setting determines the range of hues to be replaced (0 replaces only red; 255 replaces all hues that contains red). The default tolerance for the Red-eye Removal tool is 32.
Strength: The strength setting determines the darkness of the colors that replace the red pixels. The default strength for the Red-eye Removal tool is 25.

How to remove the red eye effect in a photograph:

Select the bitmap that exhibits the red eye effect. You can only use this tool on a bitmap, and not on a vector image.
Choose the Red-eye Removal tool from the Tools panel. As described above, this tool can be found in the Replace Color tool pop-up menu.
Click with the tool in the section that exhibits the red eye effect. The tool instantly transforms the red shades, to the tolerances set in the Property inspector for the tool. Notice that, as illustrated in the image below, the transformation will be in the shape of the tool.

Since the tool only looks for red pixels, it should cleanly remove the red eye. Adjust the tolerance settings to fine tune the Red-eye Removal tool for your image. As shown in the corrected image below, the tool has transformed red shades to dark shades.

Hints for use

Since the size of the tool will determine the total area affected, you will get more precise transformations if you set the tool size smaller rather than larger.
For subjects with light-color eyes, you will want to set the strength to a lower setting than for subjects with dark-color eyes.