Not red eye, but pets glowing yellow eyes

I decided to find out what causes 'red-eye' in flash photography. Interestingly I found a simple but effective, (in my view), answer here in the CNET Forums;
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7593_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=10801&messageID=123998#123998

It seems that the red-eye is caused because the pupil is wide open when the flash goes off, and the light from the flash reflects back off the retina which is full of blood vessels. With digital cameras this problem is exaggerated because the flash is so close to the lens of the camera when the photo is taken. It seems many professional photographers counteract this by having a separate flash gun offset from the camera itself. Then the light doesn't reflect directly back into the camera lens so much.

You can't do that with your own digital camera unless you want to invest in additional equipment, but perhaps you could minimise the wide open pupil by making sure there is plenty of background light in the room when you take a picture, or take your picture when your cat is not looking directly at the lens.

There is one thing that I, er... hesitate to mention. Mainly because I am in no way an expert in such matters and I don't want to cause any distress. But I see no easy way to say this.

I would have thought that yellow eyes is unusual. It may be that Himalayan cats are different and I must admit that Googling images of Himalayan cats does display a couple of cats with yellow eyes. So please take my words with a large pinch of salt.

However I know that looking into eyes is a good way of looking at the general health of the body of the owner, (of the eyes), whether it be human or animal. So, is this a time when a general health check of your cat might be a good idea?

As I say, I don't intend to cause distress, and hopefully I am way of the track here.

Sorry.

Mark

I found this http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/redeyeremoval/ss/peteye.htm and it seems to be something to try.

This is more of a problem with modern cameras that have 'built in' flash.

I also have a Dimage Z10(and love it) and several photogenic cats. I have good luck by turning as many lights on as possible and try taking without a flash, my Z10 will usually take a good picture especially if its daytime, or use the red-eye setting, its the one when you go through the flash settings that says 'slow'. Both ways mean holding the camera very still, but at least I don't have demon-eyed cats.

Good luck
Janet

You almost have the solution right in front of you and don't know it. You have Paint Shop Pro 8, I have version X (10). Mine has animal eye correction, so yours might, too. My HELP says:

? Auto Human Eye ? automatically selects the correction area and chooses settings appropriate to a human eye

? Auto Animal Eye ? automatically selects the correction area and chooses settings appropriate to an animal eye; lets you rotate the selection

? Freehand Pupil Outline ? lets you select the correction area on human or animal eyes using the Freehand Selection tool

? Point-to-Point Pupil Outline ? lets you use the Point-to-Point Selection tool to select the correction area on human or animal eyes

It also allows you to Change the color of human or animal eyes: Choose the Auto Human Eye or the Auto Animal Eye option, and select an iris color from the Hue drop-list.
If version 8 doesn't have this, cameras with red-eye reduction mode work on animals. They flicker a bright light before taking the picture. This causes your subjects' pupils to close.