Design Crafters

In my last two columns, I’ve explored some tips for taking your Photo Christmas Cards photographs indoors.

You do not want that photo of you, or the two of you, make it appear that you’ve had one too many, or have had a lack of sleep just before you have your picture taken for your Photo Christmas Card. That’s why this would be a good place to talk about red-eye.

No one likes to look bleary-eyed in a photo. Flash settings used indoors can evoke red-eye. Red-eye occurs when the flash from the camera hits the retina. The pupils dilate to allow more light into the retina, causing the problem.

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution.

When you turn on your camera’s red-eye reduction feature on, the flash pre-strobes before shooting, reducing red-eye.

Here’s a common way to implement red-eye resolution on some digital cameras:

1. Turn the Mmode dial to Set Up.
2. Press the down-facing Control button arrow.
3. Select the Camera menu.
4. Press the down-facing Control button key.
5. Select Red-Eye Reduction.
6. Press the up-facing Control button key.
7. Select On.
8. Press the Control button key.

If that darned red-eye affect remains even after you have followed the steps I have just recommended, all is not lost.  You may well be able to fix red eye in your Christmas Card Photo by using relatively easy photo editing tools. 

Red-eye reduction tools are included in Adobe Photoshop Elements, as well as in most other image-editing software tools.  In the next few days, I’ll be devoting at least one blog entry to these tools- including functions such as red-eye reduction.

With the tips I have just provided, you can forestall red-eye- and thus add an atmosphere of informal professionalism to your Photo Christmas Card.

But as a parting not, ever wonder why red-eye is seldom a problem for professional portrait photographers? Two reasons: tThey use larger cameras, where so the lens is not so close to the flash, and they tend not to shoot “On Ccamera,” or directly at, their subjects.