Everyone wants to know how to make eyes sparkle when processing photos. The thing is, capturing real sparkle in camera is such an easy thing to achieve there’s no reason why we should be doing it as part of our post processing!

It’s all about the light!

Soft Light at 45 Degrees

When photographing a portrait, position your subject so that soft light wraps around their face. My tip is to place them at a 45 degree angle to the light source, until you see gentle graduations between light and shade on their face. But as long as your subject has light falling onto their face, you can create that sparkle.

Catchlights = Sparkle

Once they’re in position, check for catchlights, which are the small windows of light we see in a person’s eyes. Ideally we would see catchlights in the 10 and 2 position (imagine a clock), but this is only because it indicates the light is coming in from slightly higher than your subject which is more flattering than uplighting them. But any windows of light in the eyes is a good thing. These catchlights will add life and depth to your portrait, and give the illusion of sparkle that people refer to.

Voila, sparkly eyes!

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