When it comes to grabbing our attention, nothing seems to have the power to captivate us more than a person's eyes, and in this Photoshop tutorial, we're going to learn a fashion retouching technique to see how easy it is to give someone's eyes a shadowy, sultry look to them. We're also going to be bringing out their colors, adding some highlights, and generally making them look sharper. Keep in mind that this is an "icing on the cake" type of effect, to be done only after an image has already been corrected for tone and color.

Here's the image I'll be using for this tutorial:

And here's our final effect:

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Let's get started!

Step 1: Create A New Layer And Name It "Shadows"

With my image open in Photoshop, I currently have one layer, the Background layer, containing my image:

I need to create a new blank layer which is going to hold the shadows, so I'm going to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+N (Win) / Command+Shift+N (Mac) to bring up the New Layer dialog box:

I'm going to name my new layer "shadows", as circled in red above, and then click OK. Photoshop adds my new blank "shadows" layer above my Background layer:

Step 2: Select Both Eyes With The Lasso Tool

Grab the Lasso tool from the Tools palette or press L on the keyboard, and then draw a selection around one of the eyes. When you're done, hold down Shift to add to the initial selection and select the second eye as well. Holding Shift tells Photoshop not to throw away the selection around the first eye when you begin selecting the second one:

Step 3: Paint With Black Along The Top Edge Of Both Eyes

We're going to add shadows to the tops of the eyes. Make sure the "shadow" layer is selected in the Layers palette, then grab the Brush tool from the Tools palette or press B on the keyboard to select it. Use a fairly large, soft-edged brush, somewhere around 40-50 pixels depending on the size of your image, and paint along the top edge of both eyes to add a shadow. Don't worry about painting above the eye by mistake because the black will only appear inside the selection we created:

Step 4: Change The Blend Mode To "Multiply" And Lower The Opacity

With the shadows painted, change the blend mode of the "shadows" layer from "Normal" to Multiply and lower the opacity of the layer to around 40%:

We don't need to have the eyes selected anymore, so press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) to deselect them.

Step 5: Select The Iris In Both Eyes

Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool from the Tools palette and drag out a selection around each iris, making sure again to hold down the Shift key when you go to select the second one so you don't lose your selection around the first one:

You'll probably end up selecting parts of the area above and below the eyes as well as I have here, so switch back to the Lasso tool, hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac), which is the keyboard shortcut for accessing the "Subtract From Selection" option, and drag around each area above and below the eyes that you didn't want to select. Each time you release the mouse button, that part of the selection will disappear. When you're done, you'll be left with just the area around each iris selected:

Step 6: Copy The Iris In Both Eyes To A New Layer

We need to copy the iris in both eyes to a new layer, so first, let's soften our selection a little bit by going up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choosing Feather, which brings up the Feather dialog box. Enter a value of about 5 pixels and then press OK:

Next, click on the Background layer in the Layers palette to select it. Then use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+J (Win) / Command+Option+J (Mac) to copy the selection onto a new layer above the Background layer. When the New Layer dialog box appears, rename the layer "dodge", since we'll be using the Dodge tool on this layer in a moment. Your Layers palette should now look similar to this:

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