About two years ago, my three year old daughter began having eye issues and it turned out that she needed glasses.
All of my studying and learning to find “good” light wasn’t always applicable when attempting to avoid the dreaded glasses glare. I’ve learned some tips and tricks along the way and today I’m going to share them with you.
Attempt to Avoid the Glare:
1. Angles
It’s all the light and your subject’s angle to that light. I always aim for the glasses to be lower than my light. When your light is on the same level as the glasses the light will reflect directly into your subjects glasses.
These images were taken at the same time with the same light but ended up with drastically different results.
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OUR ESSENTIALS FOR TAKING GLARE-FREE PORTRAITS
It’s called the “nifty fifty” for good reason! This little lens is perfect for portraits, has a wide enough aperture to perform well in lower light scenarios, and is priced just right so you don’t have to break the bank.
Creating your own light allows you to place it at the angles that eliminate glasses glare. We love this little studio light because it is small, portable, and creates nice even light that looks great on or off-camera.
Do you find yourself doing a lot of intricate editing? Then you need a tablet! Using a fine tip pen on the tablet surface is so nice when having to clone away those little bits of glare. It takes a minute to get used to it, but once you do you will never go back to a traditional mouse!
Subject: Have your subject put their head a bit lower and turn slightly away from the light.
Glasses: Alternatively, you could have your subject tilt their glasses down just a bit. By changing the angle of the glasses, but keeping their face in the same position, the light will not pick up quite as much in the lenses.
Look at the tiny change in how she moved her head. It’s really slight and you can see light being introduced into her glasses.
2. Forget everything you know about catchlights
Those big beautiful catch-lights that light up the eyes? Yeah… sorry… they also light up glasses. With this image, I typically would have had her face towards the window, but that would have made her glasses full of glare and reflections so instead I had her turn her head just slightly away from the window.
Sidenote: How cute is the pipe cleaner crown?! I got the idea from the fabulous Breakout Session from Shalonda Chaddock, The Magic of Childhood.
3. Try backlighting
Light coming from the back will be less likely to shine back into the glasses (unless there is a reflection bouncing back).
3. Take the glasses off
This is not always an option, but one to consider if the person does not wear their glasses full time. I don’t take my daughter’s glasses off for pictures, though. We are at a point now that if she took off her glasses she wouldn’t look like her and that’s definitely not my goal.
So You Got Some Glare? What now?
4. Edit them out (or make them less noticeable)
If the glare isn’t directly on the subject’s eye, I can often edit portions of it out in Photoshop. Use the patch tool to grab the area and drag it to a clean non-glared skin area.
You can also attempt to clone it out by choosing a good area and then cloning just enough of the reflection out. I will often do this at 50% opacity to just make the change subtle. The burn tool can also be powerful in really reflective glare.
If the edit is especially tricky, try a retouching service. I have been pleased with both the work, price and turn around times from many of these companies!
5. Merge two images
Take one shot without glasses and then another shot with glasses. You can then use the eyes from the first shot to add to the glasses shot similar to a head swap. Make sure you take these two images in the same spot and same lighting so that they match up seamlessly!
Great tips! Thanks for sharing Melissa!!
Thanks- I tried removing a child’s glasses and then after just a minute or two he said he couldn’t see/eyes went cross without them so we had to put them back on.
Yes! This is also why I can’t take off her glasses. Her one eye crosses and then that creates issues, too! Glad this post was helpful!
Thanks for the tips! My 8 year old daughter started wearing glasses a year ago and I’m still struggling a little bit with photographing her wearing them. I never ask her to remove them for photos because A) She doesn’t look like herself and B) I don’t want her to think she’s less beautiful because she wears them because that’s totally not true!
I love BOTH of your points, Kellie! Our picture taking is secondary to their self esteem and looking like them… I still absolutely get some reflection in glasses sometimes, and that’s completely fine and normal as long as I can see the pupils I try and let it go <3 Thanks for your comment!
Such good tips but i have to say, she is so cute!!!!!!
Another idea is there is a special tool you can get or if your customer brings the glasses to their optometrist that can pop the lenses out temporarily.
Awesome tips & she’s so adorable!
great article, Melissa!!! and she is so beautiful!
So happy for these wonderful tips, Melissa! This is one of those questions that is asked so much. You’re ideas are perfect! Thank you!
awesome tip! I recently use a reflector to diffuse some of my light and that really helped 🙂
Thank you, Melissa. Wonderful tips and such a beautiful model! 🙂
I ALWAYS carry a small eyeglass repair kit with me on shoots. When I have a client with glasses, and the glasses are part of their everyday look, I ask them if I can temporarily take out the lenses for the shoot. It takes 5 minutes to take out and put in.
I’ve never had anyone say no, and not only does it remove glare, it also means that there is no distortion on the face behind the area of the lens.
Great idea! You definitely have to be careful with kiddos with crossed eyes, though (like my daughter) because they glasses straighten them for us 😉
Great tips! Thank you for sharing.
So great! Thank you! This has been my biggest photography challenge with my active 3 year-old bespectacled son.
I always seem to have trouble with this! Thanks for breaking it all down so that maybe I can finally get it right 🙂 haha
That was great thank you and your daughter is adorable!!!! My daughter just started wearing glasses and I struggled when trying to take a picture for a testing site, glasses are required. Thank you.
I’m actually not totally sure about this, Tinny! I’d love for you to share a shot on the forum and tag me @MelissaStottmann and see if we can figure it out!
Fantastic tips! I’m a glasses wearer and have been since I was 5 years old. They are a part of me, and it’s disappointing to get shots where I look gorky because of the light reflection. If only I’d known this stuff when I went to get my passport photo done!
Excellent tutorial. I have four kids in glasses and one who can’t take her glasses off with out eye movement. I do take one photo without glasses so that I have something to work with if I need to clone. I could never seem to understand where to put the light until your tutorial. Thanks!
Thank you, thank you! My youngest started wearing glasses recently, so this is super helpful!
Melissa thank you very much, it is very important information.
If the glasses are treated with a good anti-reflective (AR) coating, you will not have as much trouble with reflections. I didn’t have a single reflection issue when I had my wedding pictures done by a friend. AR is also visually helpful by increasing light into the eye and reducing optical noise (aka light reflections). It’s helpful for computer and digital device use and night driving and helps reduce eye fatigue. Everyone should have it on their glasses.
Great tips, thank you! I have a session later today. Just saw the mom put a photo on FB of her daughter wearing the new pair of glasses they picked up this morning (which she hadn’t mentioned to me). Glare city. So I did a quick search for some pro tips and ended up here. So glad I did! 🙂
Tinny, I would certainly say NO to poping out my lenses. Wow. I can’t see a thing without my glasses and would be horribly uncomfortable. I will cause headaches and it’s just not good for your eyes. Not to mention that it might be difficult to get them put back together right and you have to go get them adjusted, ect. If the photographer is not professional enough to work around it I’d just say forget it and find someone more qualified and understanding. You clearly do not have bad eyesight to come up with something so disrespectful to eyeglass wearers. :/ Photographers should know how to deal with a common thing like glasses.
The tips on the actual site are great though. My little girl also wears glasses and we struggle with this. I usually have her tilt her head down and get some good shots.
Hi. Which photoshop do you have? Is it Element 13 or 14? Or which one??
Useful tips, thanks. Although the light conditions (and possibly the glasses) are so bad nothing seems to work for me. I’m waiting for less light. We’ll see. Your kid is such a cute model, she brightens up this article. 🙂
Thank you for this. What would you do with someone that wears transition glasses?
Your advice helped me a lot and I wear glasses, too. Sometimes because of the refection, I just can\’t see my eyes, so I need to practice adjusting the light.
Great! Glad it was helpful, Robert! It is definitely a challenge in self portraits!
Great post! I struggled with this a couple times and will definitely keep these tips in mind for the future!
Great suggestions! Thank you!
Hi,
Many many thanks for sharing such a superclass tips. I am really impressed by your tips. It’s definitely helpful. I will certainly dig it and personally suggest to my friends. I’m sure they’ll be benefited from this website.
Thank you for the tips, I have had to use photoshop a lot to remove the glare!
Thank you for the advice; I was starting to get really frustrated about glasses glare, and you solved the problem. Also, your little model is absolutely adorable.
I’m happy it was helpful!! It definitely takes some thinking about and getting used to – but makes such a difference when you upload those pics!
Hello! Thanks for your post!
Darling little girl she couldn’t be cuter! These tips help as my grown son wears glasses and I just took the best photos with his Grandma and those glare marks are all across the top of his glasses. Our chandelier was right behind them…thanks for these tips I will remember them in the future!
Hi, do you have a retouching service you recommend or have had good success with removing glare from glasses?