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Removing Red-eye

The bane of flash photography is red, glowing eyes, caused by flashgun light reflecting back from the subject's retinas. Many cameras have mechanisms to reduce this; it usually works by producing a lower-intensity 'pre-flash' which causes the pupils to close up before the photograph is actually taken with the main flash.

Except, of course, you forget to turn it on. Here's how to remove those evil eyes in Photodesk.

• Load your image. Use the above picture if you want, of our niece Natalie and friends taken by her mum.
• Zoom in on the area of interest by clicking on the Lens toolbar icon and dragging out a rectangle round the eyes.
• Click on the Paintpot icon, and in the window's pull-down menu select Paint mode>Tone.
• Click on the Saturation button, and drag its slider to -50%.
• Now open the Airbrush window, choose the smallest brush, and drag the density slider to about 30%. Depending on the image you might want to reduce the size of the brush further (expand the window to do this).
• Paint over the red bits, repeating until you're satisfied; they will gradually 'desaturate', reducing colour intensity in the affected parts. Here's one eye being done:
  

  

  Desaturating

• And here's the final result, with the girls looking distinctly less evil:
  

  

  Deredded

Notes

• This is quick to do and works very well -- the red disappears, but any highlights tend to remain.
• When you get more confident, raise the airbrush density level so fewer strokes are needed.