Some Innovative Fixes for Those Pesky Lens Reflections in Photoshop

No matter the sneaky techniques you use to get around it, sometimes eyeglass reflections are just impossible to avoid when photographing people. It’s always best practice to have the client remove the glasses for a single shot so that you have some bare eyes to work with in Photoshop, but for times when this is just not possible or you simply forget to take that extra step, this video will guide you through some great ways to fix that glare, without a ton of cloning or eye-swapping.

It happens to me all the time: an otherwise perfect shot tainted by reflections in my client's eyeglasses. When I’m shooting outdoors, I see the sky, the grass, and myself in their lenses. When I’m shooting a huge group during a wedding, I see my great big octobox and every stained glass window in the church. In an ideal world, glasses would not be so darn reflective. In an almost-ideal world, photographers would remember to take a photo of a bespectacled subject without said spectacles so that their uncovered eyes could be cloned into place in Photoshop. When all else fails, Photoshop has some great tools that can help you fix glaring glasses in no time.

In the video featured above, Unmesh Dinda demonstrates how adjustment layers can be used to minimize the appearance of reflections in your subject’s eyeglasses. By the adjusting brightness and color of the reflections, these distracting elements can be wiped out in no time, leaving your subject with glare-free lenses.

What is your favorite way to eliminate glasses glare? I’d love to see your methods in the comments below.

Jenny Edwards's picture

Jenny Edwards is a portrait photographer based in Amarillo, TX. She specializes in family and generational portraiture, as well as fashion-inspired portraits for high school seniors.

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3 Comments

This is all a great technique, even the first suggestion of taking one pic without glasses to over lay, etc. But the whole thing could have been avoided in this pic by simply having the subject move her head to her left about an inch, or tilt her head down about an inch, or the photographer moving to the right just a bit, or move the subject just a tiny bit, or move the light source just a tiny bit if possible. Then no reflection at all.

I've missed the opportunity to prevent this situation a couple of times with someone wearing glasses and paid the price in post production. Now, if someone's wearing glasses, I'm pretty hyper aware of it and take measures to prevent the reflection during the shoot.

I absolutely love this guy's videos. Watching them is always helpful and makes me realize how much I still need to improve when it comes to Photoshop.

It's a lot of work to do, but helpful. I recall watching a video of how to position the flash to avoid reflections; I think the video may have been produced by J.P. Morgan; it could've been from someone else. But glasses can be much of a person's look; I've worn glasses for over 40 years.