They say that the eyes are "the window to the soul". Maybe so. It's the first thing I look for when considering a photo restoration. At this posting time, I have a picture that shows a graduation picture with one completely missing eye....Luckily, the customer had another picture in her wallet (different size) with both eyes in tact. Most of the time, you aren't that lucky.
So, what to do? Take a good look at how much of the eye is left. This is important because each eye is different and superimposing the other eye on the picture may make the person look unfamiliar to the customer.
Next, you can copy a portion of the good eye on a separate layer, reverse it and place it as best as you can to the other eye. You may need to move the eye up or down or decrease its size. Many times, you can match up the pupils but most of the time you are matching the general points of the eye. It takes practice but eventually you will be able to match up most of the eye to carefully bring up the differences.
If you have no eye on the other side at all, you need to become creative: take the eye from one side, reverse it, resize it a little, adjust the angle a little and see what you have. In many cases, you can copy and eye from another relative in a group shot or other family picture and use it to fill the empty eye. Chalk one up for family resemblance. You can even ask the customer to tell you which relative looks the most like the one you are "fixing". That way, there are fewer surprises for the customer.
You will learn to use layers this way...you can watch a lot of YouTube videos on how to do it. The truth is "selling" your result to your customer by remembering these hints.
Next time, we will discuss cloning...and how to avoid too much dependence upon it.
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