Creating "Hollywood Eyes"

The Most Famous Photoshop Retouching Technique

Most everyone has heard of the term "Hollywood Eyes," but most don't know the term actually comes from a technique commonly used in Photoshop.

"The eyes are the windows to the soul" — William Shakespeare

"Hollywood Eyes"

Original Image

It is clear why many Photoshop techniques involve enhancements to the eyes. When we first look at photo of someone, the eyes are often where we first gaze. Creating "Hollywood Eyes" is simply enlarging them slightly for added emphasis
and it's really easy to do!

First draw a selection around the eyes and eyebrows with the rectangular marquee tool.

We're going to mask out the excess, so it can be a very rough selection, as long as both eyes and eyebrows are fully selected.

copy the selection

Making a copy of your selection by either:

selecting from the top menu
Layer > New > Layer Via Copy

2) or by the keyboard shortcut:
control + J on a PC, command + J on a Mac.

To enlarge the copy of the eyes selecting Edit > Transform > Scale, or use the keyboard shortcut:
control + T on a PC,
or command + T on a Mac;
enlarge the height and width to about 106%

With the copied layer of the eyes still
selected, click on the "Add Layer Mask"
icon in the layers pallet. This mask will be used to remove the excess around the edges of the enlarged layer of the eyes.

selecting brush to paint mask with black

With the mask still selected, click on the brush in the tools pallet, or simply press the "b" on the keyboard. Make sure that black, the default color, is your foreground (painting) color.

Check the brush settings: a soft brush and at the appropriate size.

Now simply "paint out" the edges of the rectangle to remove the excess. You can see the black in the mask in the layers pallet where you have painted out the unwanted edges.
switching brush colors If you make a mistake, simply paint the error white again by switching your paint color to white, and back to black when you are done to continue masking.

Remember, when masking in Photoshop, white reveals and black conceals the underlying image.

You may also want to option-click the mask for some fine-tuning, which will show you the mask details.

This may help reveal any gaps that may have been missed. When you are satisfied with the results, option-click again to reveal the image once again.

You're done creating "Hollywood Eyes!"

One final note: every place I have read and seen this technique they always use a fixed aspect ratio and never exceed a 5-6% enlargement. It makes sense that the width should never exceed this.

I have a confessing: in the opening before & after example I broke BOTH rules. The width was 6%, but the height was 8%. As we enlarge the width, the eyes are drawn outward towards the ears. If we go too far the subject may begin looking like an alien.

But this girl and I have "squinted eyes" in common. My "normal" eyes look as if I need a cup of coffee or two. I see no reason, under the right circumstances, that the height cannot exceed a 6% enlargement.

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