How to Make Longer Eyelashes in Photoshop

You always want to look your best, but you really want to look your best in a photograph. A quick touch-up technique to accent your eyes is to lengthen your lashes--but extending your lashes in Photoshop is much cheaper than a professional makeover.

Instructions

1. Open your digital photo in Photoshop. Use an image with a good view of your lashes. Select the lashes over one eye with the Lasso tool. Don't worry that you're selecting pixels from the eyelid or eyeball as well.

2. Switch to "Quick Mask" mode (at the bottom of the toolbar). Your selection should now fill with a translucent red overlay. Make "White" the foreground color and paint out the pixels surrounding the lashes. Change the brush size as needed to paint out smaller pixel areas. Don't worry if you don't get every flesh or eye colored pixel.

3. Switch back to "Paint" mode. The selection marquee should now be an irregular area around your lashes. Copy the selection to a new layer. Change the layer blend mode to "Darken" to mask out more of the skin tone pixels.

4. Use the "Distort" command (from the Edit menu and Transform submenu) to stretch the eyelashes. Leave the base alone, but stretch the handles at the lash tips outward. The greater the distance between the handles on the tip side, the longer your lashes will appear. The darkened layer pixels will hide the shorter lashes underneath.

Tips & Warnings

• If your selection area isn't filled with a transparent overlay, your Quick Mask preferences are set to paint on a mask rather than the selection. You can double click on the Quick Mask tool to change the preferences or paint with black instead of white.