Any way of removing dog 'green eye'?

[abitfishy]

Hi all. Attached is a pic of my adorable Sunny the Shepherd/Cattle/Lab cross. Just a snap, I know its not photographically very good. I love taking photos of my dogs (have a Corgi x Chihuahua as well) but hate the dreaded 'green eye'. Red eye reduction doesn't minimise it, so other than PP, is there any technique that I could use shooting to minimise it? Thanks.

[I @ M]

Just a snap, I know its not photographically very good.

Don't be so hard on yourself 'fishy because it is photographically quite good. Apart from the rather cluttered background it is very well exposed (especially with a flash) and looks to have plenty of detail and sharpness to it.

On to the "green eye" --- the biggest cause of green, red, pink or blue eyes in photos is the direction that the light from a flash comes from and falls on the eye. With inbuilt camera flashes and attached speed lights set to fire straight ahead they are generally pointing straight down the line of sight of the lens so when you are focussing (correctly) on the eyes it naturally follows that the flash will go straight into the eye and reflect back out giving the dreaded red eye.

Speedlights are better than inbuilt flashes because they raise the light source above the line of sight of the lens a bit but can still cause problems. The best answer is to either bounce the flash of a ceiling or wall when you can to minimise the single point of light travelling in a straight line or get the flash off the camera entirely so that the light is coming from a totally different angle to the camera once again and trigger it by a synch cord or wirelessly.

[Harves]

Hope you don't mind me editing your photo. The adjustments were made in CS4.
Spot healing tool on the green eyes, with a soft brush to add a little catch light.
Only took a couple of minutes to change.

[ricktas]

The green eye is caused by light bouncing off the retina at the back of the eye, thus it only appears in the area of the eye that should be black, so an easy fix in your editing package is to make a selection of the green and change it's colour to black. Then as Harves has done, add some catchlights using a small soft white brush.

[abitfishy]

Oh thanks all. That's what I've been missing Ricktas, I wondered what it was, and its the highlights in the eyes. I've touched up a few and they look wrong, thats obviously why.

Thanks again.

[Steve Axford]

Try reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum It explains the whole thing

[Analog6]

A diffuser on the flash just about eliminates 'gold eye' in my cat shots, so that might work for green eye in dogs. If you are using on camera flash, go into the sales are and have a look at the Gary Fong style knock off from ebay on flash diffuser I had, it is pictured on my 20D that was for sale back in December. Will give you the idea of what to look for.