Why do eyes appear red in some photos?

Red eyes do appear on most of the photos taken with flash by modern compact digital cameras. It happens because the flash light illuminates the blood vessels of the retina in the eye.This phenomena causes red-eye defect on photos. To try to eliminate this, you can try the following:

a. Putting the flash away from the camera's optical axis to make sure that the flash will hit the eye at an oblique angle. The light enters the eye in a direction awau from the optical axis of the camera and is refocused by the eye lens back along the same axis. Hence the retina will not be visible to the camera and the eyes will appear natural.

b. Taking photos without flash - by enough lighting (which also constricts pupils) or opening the lens aperture.

c. Some cameras have red-eye reduction capabilities.

d. Having the subject not look straight at the camera, instead look at the shoulder of the photographer.

e. Using some graphic packages to remove red eyes from photographs already printed.



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