How to Really Get Rid of Red Eye
For years now, camera manufacturers have been inflicting red-eye reduction mode on their customers. It’s a series of bright, strobing flashes that’s not only annoying to the people you’re photographing, but doesn’t even work.
What causes red eye? In a dimly lit room, the subject’s pupil dilates, revealing more of the retina. On cameras where the flash is close to the camera lens (as it almost always is), the light from the flash shines through the dilated pupil, bounces off the retina, and reflects as a red circle directly back into the lens. (The same thing happens to animals, too, except that the color is sometimes green instead of red.)
The solution is to move the flash away from the camera lens. That way, the reflection from the retina doesn’t bounce directly back at the camera.
But on a camera that fits in your pocket, it’s a little tough to achieve much separation of flash and lens.
Since camera makers couldn’t move the flash away, they went to Plan B: firing the flash just before the shutter snaps, in theory contracting the subjects’ pupils, thereby revealing less retina. Alas, it doesn’t work very well, and you may wind up with red eye anyway.
You have three ways out of red eye. If you can turn up the lights, do it. If you have that rare digicam that accepts an external, detachable flash, use it. And if none of that works, remember that you can edit out red eye on your computer, using, for example, the Red Eye reduction tools offered in programs like EasyShare and Picasa or Photoshop Elements.
