How to Remove Glasses From a Face in Photoshop
Photoshop, Adobe's image manipulation and graphics editing software, features a tool called the "Clone Stamp," which allows users to replace areas of an image with pixels that have been sampled from another area of the image. The Clone Stamp is useful for photographers who wish to remove an errant cloud in the sky or an unattractive power line, but is also valuable for individuals who wish to touch up photos of themselves or others. Removing glasses from a subject's face in Photoshop takes some skill and practice with the Clone Stamp tool, but is an excellent way to hone photo editing talent.
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Instructions
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1
Open the portrait you wish to edit in Photoshop by clicking on the "File" menu and selecting the "Open" option. In the explorer window, find the image file you wish to open, highlight it by clicking on it and press the "Open" button.
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2
Zoom in on a small area of the glasses you wish to remove by choosing the "Magnifying Glass" tool and clicking multiple times. Each click will double the magnification. Zoom in far enough that you can see the fine details in the image. A zoom amount of approximately 500 percent is typically sufficient.
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3
Select the "Clone Stamp" tool from the toolbox on the left. Choose a brush size that is appropriate for the size of your image and the detail of each particular area. For larger images, a larger brush size is appropriate, while for smaller images or areas with very intricate detail, a smaller brush size is necessary.
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Hold down the "Alt" key on a Windows PC or the "Option" key on Mac OS X, and click on an area of the photograph immediately adjacent to the area of glasses you are removing. This will tell the Clone Stamp tool to sample the pixels underneath this area and copy them to the area over that you will paint. You will be cloning small areas at a time, and will need to sample a new area for each portion of the glasses.
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Paint over the glasses by holding your mouse button down and dragging the cursor over the glasses. The clone stamp tool will replace the pixels in the areas you are painting with the pixels from your sampled area.
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Resample periodically to get the closest match to the color and texture of the skin, eyes or hair under the glasses. Areas immediately adjacent to the glasses will typically match best. Use a smaller brush as you move into more detailed areas.
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Choose the "Smudge" tool and set its strength to approximately 20 percent by using the strength slider in the toolbar.
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Smudge the areas of the face and hair that you have cloned to blend these areas with the rest of the photograph.
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Tips & Warnings
If areas of your photograph look unrealistic after using the Clone Stamp tool, do not be afraid to undo your changes and try again with a different sample area. It is difficult to tell if the sample will be accurate until you start painting, and it is likely that you will have to undo and redo areas a number of times before it looks right.
Clone stamping is a destructive process, meaning it permanently changes the pixels in your image. Do not overwrite your original file, otherwise you will never be able to recover the original image with the glasses intact.
