[RobHynson]

I've been going through a lot of mammal photos from Tasmania from last year and am struggeling with red eye correction on a few of my photos.

I use a Canon 7D with a 100-400 mm lens with a 580 speedlite flash, shoot in RAW and process in lightroom.

The red eye correction in lightroom doesn't do a great deal so I end up using the adjustment brush. This takes a long time to get decent results but often there are strange artifacts in the final image, see image attached.

Does anyone have any tips, either while taking the photograph or in post-processing that could get better results and cut back on prcoessing time?

Many thanks in advance,

Rob

[Pinewood]

Hello Rob,

I know little of digital photography but prevention should be the same as it was in the days of film. Red eye is reflection of the flash off the retina of the eye. This is most pronounced when the flash is close to the lens axis. Using an accessory flash on an extension arm should solve that. Point and shoot cameras used to have a portrait setting, where a few flashes preceded the actual flash for the shot, which would close the subject's retina but that would not be helpful in animal photography.

I hope that might be helpful.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood

[Bird_Bill]

Pre-flash might well work on critters, might scare the heck out of 'em too.
Circular "ringlight" will often help. Also gives a pearly looking catch light
reflected in eye(s) in studio portrait work.

Edit: as suggested above, obliquely placed light source does much to eliminate.
Diffusers can help somewhat also.

[Farnboro John]

Nocturnal animals are often more difficult as many have a reflective layer behind the retina that reflects light back through it, thus doubling the signal strength to the dark adapted eye.

Red Foxes, for instance, will actually produce a glowing headlight beaming back out of the eye if photographed with a near-axis flash.

Get the flash onto a bracket, the further off-axis the better.

Of course this will also give you a shadow to one side of the animal. Can look more natural or less depending on background.

John

[seaspirit]

Looking at your sample I don't see the typical red eye effect, i.e. the pupil is not showing any red reflection.
The pupil is black with a nice catch light and the red looks more like the skin surrounding the eye.
If you tried do fix this with any of the auto red eye reduction tools I am not surprised that it didn't work. Most of these look for roundish shapes, not doughnut shaped areas to take red out.

Ulli