Keetee

This tutorial will explain how to darken and thicken eyelashes, add subtle eyeliner, and add a little dimension to the iris. There are a lot of tutorials out there for adding dramatic makeup digitally, but this one focuses on maintaining a natural look. Just say no to gaudy purple eyeshadow—enhance with subtlety (and this tutorial)!

Final Image Preview

Assets

• Eye Stock 2 by ttooxxiicc-lloovvee. I’ll be using the fullview version at 900px × 530px.

The Process

Open your image and duplicate the Background layer. Select your new layer (a duplicated version of the original image), and name it Darken Lashes (Selective). With this layer still selected, go to Image » Adjustments » Selective Color.

In the Selective Color dialog box, change the Colors dropdown to Blacks, the Method to Relative, and change the Black slider to 7%. This adds a little darkness our eyelashes.

You may notice that the same darkness was applied to the iris. To fix this, let’s use a layer mask.

Open to the Masks panel by going to Windows » Masks. Click the Add a Pixel Mask button. (If you’re new to Photoshop masks, please read my beginner masking tutorial.)

Select the layer mask you just created. Select the Brush tool and set your brush size 100px, 0% hardness, and black. Brush over the white of the eye and the iris. You’ll see it lightening as you do so—the original image is now showing through in that area.

Duplicate your Darken Lashes (Selective) layer. Rename the new layer to Darken Lashes (Burn). Select the Burn Tool from the Tools panel. Change the brush settings to 21px in size, 0% hardness. Select Shadows from the Range dropdown and set the Exposure to 30%.

For the top lashes, brush gently from the tips of the lashes to just before the lash line. If you brush from top to very bottom, you’ll create more dark areas than necessary for this procedure. Keep your darkening to the upper portion of each upper lash.

Bottom lashes, however, can be stroked from top to bottom.

Next, we’re going to thicken the eyelashes. Create a new layer above the others and name it Thicken Eyelashes. Ensure it’s selected.

Select the Pen Tool from the Tools panel. Click once at the tip of one of the thicker eyelashes.

Look closely to see where the eyelash ends. Click at that point and HOLD. Do not release your mouse button just yet!

With the mouse button still being held down, move toward the upper right. You’ll see the line connecting your two points begin to curve. Move in this direction until the curve perfectly aligns with the eyelash.

Now that we have our path, we can Stroke it—in other words, add a line that will follow the path we just created. (If you like, you can check out my introduction to stroking paths.)

To do so, select the Brush Tool and change the options to 5px size, 0% hardness, and black. Open the Paths panel (Windows » Paths) and right-click the path you just created. Choose Stroke path and ensure that Simulate Pressure is checked in the dialog box that shows up. Accept the settings, and you should see a stroke appear beneath your eyelash!

Here’s what it looks like without the path on top.

Repeat the above process to create more eyelashes. In the Paths panel, you can click the Create New Path button to add more paths. Don’t do this for the bottom lashes, just the top ones!

When you’re done, set the Blending Mode for the layer to Overlay. This will soften the transition between the real eyelashes and the ones we just created.

For further softening, run a 300px eraser over the top of the eyelashes.

Okay, our eyelashes have been darkened and thickened. Let’s add some eyeliner!

Create a new layer and name it Top Eyeliner. Select this layer. This will be the eyeliner for the upper lashline.

Select the Brush Tool. Change the settings to 21px, 0% hardness, and black. Draw a line from one end of the lashline to the other:

Select the Eraser Tool. We want the eyeliner to taper off as it approaches the inside of the eye, so change the settings to 45px, 0% hardness, and erase progressively more as you head toward the inside of the eye. It should taper off like this:

Change the layer Blending Mode to Soft Light.

Create a new layer and name it Bottom Eyeliner. The process here is similar. Use a black brush, 0% hardness, 21px, to draw a line on the lashline. Stop about 1/4 from the inside of the eye, and make sure it tapers off.

I added one or two clicks of a 65px, 0% hardness, black brush toward the outer corner of the eye as well.

Change the layer blending mode to Soft Light.

This isn’t too bad, but eyeliner application comes with a little more noise. We’re going to add a little smudging and subtle dots.

Keren_R created some neat star brushes that I used to accomplish this. You can download them here—just double-click the file to load the brush set into Photoshop. It will appear under your presets.

Create a new layer and name it Bottom Smudging. Select the 630px brush named Sampled Brush #3. Changed the size to 175px, keep it black, and change the angle to 112 degrees. Click once toward the outside of the eye and on the lash. Switch the angle to 67 degrees and click again to the right of your first brush. The result should be something like this:

Erase the area (I used a 45px, 0% hardness eraser) above the bottom lashline to ensure no additional darkness was added there.

Change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.

Create a new layer called Top Smudging. For the top lashes, I used Sampled Brush #12 which is 432px by default. I kept the same size.

Erase below the lashline.

Final Image

The final step is to add some depth to the iris. I decided to work with a merged version at this point. To create a new layer that contains a merged version of all your other layers, just press CTRL + A to select all, then go to Edit » Copy Merged. Then Edit » Paste or CTRL + V.

Select the Burn Tool. Set the Exposure to 10%, the Range to Shadows, and the size to 45px. In a single stroke, brush around the outside of the iris, darking the ring around it.

Select the Dodge tool. Set the Exposure to 50%, the Range to Midtones, and the size to 45px. Brush over the green area of the iris just once, making sure you exclude the pupil.

All done!: