[Editor’s note: This extra tutorial is a companion piece to the “Eyes Have It” tutorial in Volume 5, Number 3 of Photoshop Elements Techniques newsletter. Click here to download a free PDF version of that tutorial, if you don’t have your issue handy.]

Meet my little friend JoJo, a gorgeous little Chinese girl with deep, dark brown almond-shaped eyes. Let’s see what we can do with her eyes.

Use the Ctrl-+ (Mac: Command-+) keyboard shortcut to zoom the image up to where her right eye fills the screen. It will probably look a bit pixilated, but the size will make it easier to get your brushes in. Use your Brush tool (B) with the Mode set to Soft Light and choose the Stipple Dense 21-pixel brush from the Brush Preset pop-up menu. Set a brush size that will let you sweep black across her lashes. Make the brush slightly smaller (by pressing the [ (left bracket) key) to sweep accents out on each lash clump.

Let’s get rid of the catchlights that are already present. Use the Clone tool (S)—setting the mode to Normal and Opacity to 100 percent—to clean up her pupil and any highlights at the bottom of her eyelid. We’ll leave that reflection in her iris for now.

Next, we’ll create new catchlights (similar to the way we did in the original tutorial). Start with the Brush tool, set to a size of 10, and the Mode to Soft Light. Then, press the X key to toggle the foreground color to White. Click the brush about seven times to add a white circle to the iris. Now click the ] key to make your brush one size larger and then click about four more times. Notice how this gives the catchlight a soft, rounded look? This helps sculpt that flat eye into a rounded, dimensional image. Increase the brush size a third time to and click about three times to add a slightly larger, softer catchlight.

With your brush tool selected, click on the foreground color square to open the color palette. Select a rich golden color and close the palette. This color should be “loaded” as the top color square on your palette.

Use your brush (still on Soft Light Mode) to sweep this color into the highlight area at the bottom of her iris. This adds a warm glow to the brown iris.

Reset your default color palette for the brush (Soft Light Mode) by pressing the D key and then toggle the foreground color to White palette by pressing the X key. Now, clean up the whites of her eyes.

I’ve found that an almond-shaped eye can benefit by a higher sweep of the triangle and a slightly lighter sweep right next to the iris.

Finally, set your brush’s Mode to Normal (not Soft Light for dark brown eyes), with its Opacity set to 16%. Press X to make Black the foreground color and select a brush size that fits her pupil. Click the brush about 5 times on her pupil to add more definition to the pupil area in the iris.

Move to the left eye and clone out the existing catchlight and reflections. This time remove the reflection at the bottom of the iris.

Create the catchlight the same way you did with the right eye. Make sure to scroll back and forth to match the sizes of the catchlights between the two eyes.

With your brush set on the same settings, sweep a small arc in the bottom of her iris to establish the reflection.

Scroll over to the completed right eye and use the eyedropper tool (I) to select one of the golden tones we created in the reflection at the bottom of the iris. Scroll back to the left eye, and using a slightly smaller brush, stroke this color in and all around the highlight we created to soften it and taper the ends of the highlight, as well as add the golden color.

Reset your default color palette (D) and toggle to white (X) and clean up the whites of the left eye, paying particular attention to the top of the triangle and right along the iris.

Zoom out completely and check to make sure that the two eyes are balanced.

Here’s a close-up of the eyes before–

And after our retouching:

(and the full version):

While we’re finished with the eyes, let’s have a little fun to complete the portrait. Click on your color palette to open it and select a soft red color.

Using your brush on the same settings, adjust the brush size and sweep this color lightly over her lips. You can even make the brush much larger and sweep just a tiny bit of color into her cheeks.

Use the brush, set on default black to sweep several times over the blanket in the corner to “burn” or darken it.

If you want to add softness to the portrait, follow Steps 10 and 11 in the printed tutorial. In this case, I opted to make the portrait a little softer, sliding the Layer Opacity scale to 53% instead of 60%.

There now, don’t you feel like we’ve opened the curtains and make the glass all clean and sparkly on these eyes, the “windows to the soul”? I only wish cleaning my real house windows was as compulsive to me as retouching eyes!!