goldeye?

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

Calling all photography experts. How do I fix "goldeye" . I cant seem to get a good indoor picture without the demon glow on the dogs. The fix redeye feature on my camera doesnt change it. I cant even fix it on my Windows Photo program ..because it doesnt recognize it as red. It doesn't change when I put the little red eye corrector box around it. Any ideas?

[Richard Crowe]

TESTING YOUR CAMERA:

Access the web site: http://www.shooting-digital.com/columns/schwartz/shutter_release_te...

Follow the directions for determining your camera's lag time.

I averaged between .05 and .1 seconds for my Canon 40D. I am sure that part of that lag was caused by the time it took between the pointer hitting zero and my finger on the shutter. The eye to brain to finger coordination probably caused a longer lag than the shutter response.

However when I did this with my Olympus point and shoot camera, the lag time was far-far longer. The built-in shutter lag compounded the delay my reflexes caused.

[Richard Crowe]

I asked for help on my Canon Photo Internet Forum. This is the answer I got and it might very well help you:

There is a free program available to everybody called, GIMP. It does a lot of the same things that Photoshop does, but not everything. One thing it CAN do is create various layers. I have reduced glow eye by masking out the dog's eyes and layering a black brush over the glow. Set the layer's transparency to a setting that reduces the glow eye, but yet looks natural. This probably won't completely CURE the glow eye, but it will certainly make the picture look more acceptable.

Do a Google search for GIMP, download, install, and you're on your way!

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

Wow Richard! You are quite the photography/camera expert. Thanks for all the information. I have learned a lot. Now I have decided I may get a new camera for Christmas after all. I will still keep my P&S in my purse etc...but it would be nice to have a better one for home stuff - making pics for the relatives etc... I am going to look around and research. I have learned from all the responses I can go in and manually paint in the color over the gold with a good program, but it would definitely be nice to get a camera that is both super fast in lag time for those in motion shots and one that can take a pic without the goldeye/greeneye in the first place.

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

HA!! Greeneye gone! What do you think??? I am pleased, I emailed this pic to my Mom. She will be happy (the glowing eyes she finds unnerving - I dont know why - lol)

[LuvMyAbby&Kaela]

I dunno, now that I look at it on DK it looks a little fake. Or is it me looking at it too critically?

[Leslie and Halas]

I think it looks pretty good. Abby's left eye is the only one where you can kind of tell, but I think you have to look at it pretty closely to see that the photo has been altered.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It looks great. If you had just posted this photo, nobody would even notice it. Including you!

[Rose]

I think it's a great photo!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Great job...no more glow in the dark doodle eyes.

[Richard Crowe]

In case you consider a Canon DSLR - here is a site that covers just about anything you want to know about Canon cameras.

http://www.picturesocial.com/group/canonusergroup

[Kevin Lackey]

Photography can quickly become an obsession. Richard's suggestion at aquiring a good, used D-SLR is a good one. If that is an option for you with the upcoming holidays, then I would recommend that you stay with either Canon or Nikon. They are the 2 biggest brands in the biz and for good reason.

Fuji is also pretty good. They partnered with Nikon, and made some very capable cameras.

Minolta sold their camera technology division to Sony, so now Sony is in the game with some decent models, where the older Minolta models were quite challenged.

Pentax is kinda the "red-headed stepchild" in the D-SLR biz so to speak. They had some great cameras back in the film days but lost their way and are struggling to make a comeback, but few people even care. It's kinda sad.

I work in the photo biz, and it sounds as if Richard does as well. if you have any questions, just shoot me an email, because I don't get on to DK as often as I'd like.