How to Correct a Blurry Eye in Lightroom
It happens to every photographer, hobbyist and professional alike, when we capture a wonderful image only to find out later, in post processing, that one of the eyes is "soft" (i.e. a little out of focus).
If the eye or eyes are only a little tiny bit soft, that can usually be saved via a Lightroom brush (I highly recommend the Perfect Portrait Brushes to fix this), but if the eyes are REALLY soft, a brush will not solve the problem.
What can we do to correct this?
In the first year or two of using Lightroom, I would have taken images like this one to Photoshop to fix. However, over the years I have learned how to make the most of the clone and heal tools and find that I can now do 99% of ALL my editing work in right in Lightroom. This is one of the Lightroom editing tricks I use from timte to time, and I hope you are able to utilize it in the future as well.
Using the Lightroom Clone Tool to Replace a Blurry Eye with a Copy of the Sharp Eye
Important note - this trick only works if you have at least one eye that is sharp and the reflection and catchlights are very similar in both the eyes.
- Zoom into the eyes so you can work in more detail.
- Click on the Spot Removal icon in the local adjustment tool bar, just below the Histogram panel.
- Click on the Clone tool.
- Move your mouse into the image and brush only over the pupil and iris of the soft/blurry eye.
- Move the target area that comes up (because LR will NOT choose the right area automatically) over the sharp eye.
- If it is too obvious then lower the opacity which will help it blend in.
If you are more of a visual learner, I put together a short video tutorial demonstrating how to do this below:
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