How to Remove Glare from a Subject's Glasses

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Glare on glasses is never one flat patch of gray — it has layers. We start by selecting the reflection with Quick Mask and darkening it, hand the bright rim to the Healing Brush and Clone Stamp, then fine-tune the eye light and the overall yellow cast. The eyes look far cleaner when you are done.

Before you start

  1. Open Online PS (zaixianps.cc).
  2. Click File → Open (or press Ctrl+O) and import the photo you want to work on.

1️⃣ Select the gray reflection and darken it (Quick Mask)

Glare is really light bouncing off the surface of the glasses, and it shows up as gray areas of varying depth. First we isolate them, then use Curves to darken them so they merge naturally with the skin.

  1. Press Q to enter Quick Mask mode.
  2. Pick the Brush tool (B), set hardness to 20%–30% and choose a size that fits, then paint over every obvious gray reflection (hotspots and soft translucent gray veils included).
    If some areas come out too dark or too light, sample a gray as the foreground color in the options bar → color sample so the mask stays consistent.
  3. Press Q again to leave Quick Mask. Your selection is now in place.
  4. Open Image → Adjustments → Curves (Ctrl+M) and pull the middle of the curve down slightly (about 5%–10%) so the pixels inside the selection get darker as a group.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Note: because the grays vary in depth, a single pass is usually not enough.
    What to do: keep the selection active and repeat steps 4–5 (dropping 2%–5% each time) until the difference in brightness between the gray areas and the surrounding skin is almost gone.

2️⃣ Deal with the bright rim (Healing Brush + Clone Stamp)

Bright white light or highlight lines often appear along the edge of the frames. The Healing Brush tends to smear these hard edges, so pair it with the Clone Stamp for a precise clean-up.

  1. Healing Brush (J)
    - Choose a soft round brush, about 5–10 px, hardness 0%.
    - Hold Alt to sample clean skin near the eye, then brush lightly over the white rim.
    - Use this tool only on the eye socket (the white streaks above the brow).
  2. Clone Stamp (S)
    - Set brush hardness to 100% and size to 3–6 px.
    - Again hold Alt to sample similar texture from the frame or the eyelid,
    - then cover the white specks on the edge of the glasses precisely, with no blurry residue.
    - Zoom in to 200%–400% when you need to work in detail.

3️⃣ Refine the gray areas again (light Curves pass)

After the bright rim is handled, a faint gray layer is usually left behind. One more gentle darkening pass makes the reflection look natural.

  1. Keep the existing selection (if it has been dropped, use Quick Mask again to select the remaining pale gray patches).
  2. Open Image → Adjustments → Curves and this time pull the curve down only 2%–3% — very subtle.
  3. Confirm, then check whether the overall light reads naturally.

4️⃣ Sculpt the eye light (Soft Light layer + low-opacity brush)

The eyes are the most important detail area. Create a blank layer, set its blending mode to Soft Light, and use a low-opacity brush with black and white foreground colors to render local darks and brights.

  1. Click Layer → New → Layer (Shift+Ctrl+N) and name it "Eye Light".
  2. In the Layers panel, change this layer's blending mode to Soft Light.
  3. Set the foreground color to black and take the Brush tool (B):
    - Opacity: 10%–20%
    - Flow: 100%
    - Brush hardness: about 30% (a balance of soft and hard)
    - Size: adjust to the area you are working on.
  4. Dab lightly over the iris, lash line and lash roots — anywhere that needs to go darker — and build up layer by layer. Two or three passes is fine.
  5. Switch the foreground color to white and brush lightly over the catchlights in the whites of the eye, the pupil highlight and the sparkle to lift the brightness.
  6. Check the overall result. If the eye still looks dull, add more black; if it lacks gloss, add more white.

5️⃣ Correct the overall yellow cast (global blue tone)

The first darkening pass can leave the eye socket looking slightly yellow. Adding a touch of blue over the whole eye area brings the skin tone back to normal.

  1. Make a selection again (Quick Mask) covering the entire eye and eye socket.
  2. Create a blank layer and leave the blending mode on Normal.
  3. Set the foreground color to blue (#3A8DFF or any soft blue you prefer):
    - Opacity: 10%–15%
    - Flow: 80%
    - Brush size: enough to cover the whole eye socket.
  4. Brush once inside the selection, then judge the skin tone before deciding whether to add a second pass.
  5. If some spots are still yellow, use Color Balance (Ctrl+B) and move the Shadows / Midtones yellow slider to the left (less yellow), adding a little blue.

6️⃣ Fine-tune the local color (less red + less green = more blue)

The eye area often picks up a slight red or green shift, especially in the whites. Correct it with Hue/Saturation or Color Balance.

  1. Select the whites of the eye (Quick Mask or the Lasso tool will do), create a blank layer and set it to Soft Light.
  2. Set the foreground color to deep blue (#2457A6):
    - Opacity: 5%–8%
    - Flow: 60%
    - Paint gently with a soft round brush wherever the whites need less red or green.
  3. For more precision, use Image → Adjustments → Hue/Saturation (Ctrl+U), tick Colorize, lower the yellow/green values only and let blue creep up slightly.
  4. Compare in real time (undo with Ctrl+Z) to confirm the whites look natural and not overly blue.

7️⃣ Unify the skin tone with a sampled color (low-opacity brush)

Once the retouching is done, the skin tone may look slightly uneven. Sampling a color and brushing it in at low opacity blends everything together softly.

  1. Sample from a patch of normal skin (cheek or forehead) with the Eyedropper tool (I).
  2. Switch to the Brush tool (B):
    - Foreground color: the sampled color
    - Opacity: 20%
    - Flow: 60%
    - Hardness: 0% (soft round)
  3. Brush gently over uneven areas (under the eyes, around the nose) and the color blends in naturally.
  4. If a spot is still too dark or too bright, sample and brush again.

8️⃣ (Optional) Stamp the layers and sharpen the eyes

When all the retouching is finished, you can stamp all layers (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E) into a single new layer to make exporting or further refinement easier.

  1. Stamp: Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E — the new layer appears at the top of the stack.
  2. On that merged layer, run Filter → Sharpen → Unsharp Mask:
    - Amount: 150%
    - Radius: 0.8 px
    - Threshold: 0 (adjust to taste).
  3. Check whether the eyes look crisper. If noise appears, damp it down slightly with Filter → Noise → Reduce Noise.
  4. When you are happy, save with File → Export As → PNG/JPEG.
Common questions & tips
  • Why isn't one Curves pass enough? The glare spans a wide range of grays, and a single pass only covers part of that range. Several small steps follow the light structure of the skin much more closely.
  • Why is the Quick Mask red? Online PS uses a translucent red as the default mask visualization. You can change it under Preferences → Quick Mask color.
  • Why the Healing Brush smears: it matches the surrounding texture automatically, so on the edge of a highlight it drags the highlight into the result and leaves a smudge. Switch to a Clone Stamp at 100% hardness and sample matte texture next to it instead.
  • What the Soft Light layer does: Soft Light turns black into a darkening and white into a brightening on its own, so a low-opacity black-and-white brush lets you shape local light without damaging the original color information.
  • Choosing the blue: if the yellow cast is strong, a light lift with Color Balance → Midtones → Cyan works well. Keep the blue restrained, or the image turns cold and false.

References

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