Are you interested in changing eye color for amazing new effects and looks in Photoshop?

This tutorial will show you how to go from this:

 

 

To this:

 

 

Step 1

First you will need a high resolution image of an eye to work with.

Begin by duplicating the eye layer – you should work on a duplicated image so you can toggle back and forth later, and observe the changes. To do this go to your “layer/channels/paths” window, right click the word “background” and chose “duplicate layer”

Step 2

Then select the burn tool and set it’s range to “midtones” and exposure to 35%.

Burn all around the edges of the iris (the colored part of the eye) until it’s almost black but not quite black, then increase the size of the brush and burn the pupil. The eye should look something like this now:

Step 3

Then use the burn tool around the entire eye – right on the eyelash line – and apply it like eyeshadow until it begins to appear dark, like this:

Step 4

Now grab the dodge tool, set its range to “midtones” and the exposure to 35%

and get in between the iris and pupil to make it glow

Step 5

Create a new layer and set the blending mode to “color”. To do this, make sure that the new layer is active and at the top of the layers channel you’ll see a box with an arrow pointing down. Inside the box it will read “normal”, click on it and a list of options will come up. Change “normal” to “color” and reduce the opacity – located at the right of the box you just changed – to 50%,

Now pick a nice bright color (like orange or yellow) and select the paintbrush tool with normal mode enabled, and set both the opacity and flow to 100. Then choose a brush size so that it fits in between the iris and the pupil and simply paint inside of it.

Step 6

Click over to your “background copy” layer and select your dodge tool. With a small brush, carefully use it around the edge of the pupil a couple times.

Then increase the brush size and use it around and in between the iris and pupil where you colored.

Step 7

With the “background copy” layer still active, select “filter-render-lighting effects”

You will see a diagram of your eye. To make the light come from the top of your eye direct the focal point coming from where you think looks best. Also you’ll see two boxes to the right, pick the top one and change the color to a dark color.

It should look something like this:

Step 8

At this point your eye should already be looking pretty spooky, but if it looks too colorful you can try this – with your background copy layer still active, go to “create new fill or adjustment layer”. I circled it here:

It is located under your background and layers pallet and is a circle that is split black and white. Select it as well as hue/saturation. Then simply decrease the saturate element until you like the result.

You should have something like this now:

Step 9

Now activate your color layer and hover your arrow over the square (the little thumbnail of your color layer) and hold the control button down and click it. Then select “create new fill or adjustment layer” and click brightness/contrast. Increase the contrast and decrease the brightness until you are satisfied.

Step 10

If you still aren’t satisfied with the color you can change it by hovering the arrow over the color layer you made and control click it again. Select “create fill or adjustment layer” and with hue/saturation use the hue slider until you find your preferred color.

And that’s it! Now you have a neat image to show your friends and family, and you got some extra practice using Adobe Photoshop.

I’d appreciate it if you share this around the web via the icons below, thanks!

Tagged as: effect, psd-tutorial, tutorial