When it comes to portraits, ‘focus on the eyes’ is a ‘golden rule’ as it can make or break an image. The eyes should be in crisp focus as viewers are always drawn towards the eyes in a portrait, which always creates a natural connection.

Getting sharp eyes in a portrait can be tricky and it has to do with the techniques used to shoot and in post-processing, so here are 3 core tips that should be considered to get sharper eyes in your portraits.

Appropriate Use of Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO

Portrait photographers usually like to shoot on the widest aperture possible for the sake of a beautiful bokeh effect and soft skin. Getting sharper eyes can be quite tricky at apertures f/1.4, f/1.8, etc., unless the photographer is highly skilled. So, it is best to start from a narrower aperture of around f/7 (approx.) and then with practice – working your way to wider open apertures (remember that the lower the number the wider the aperture).

Getting closer to the subject at longer focal lengths with a very wide aperture, such as f/2.8, will create a very shallow depth of field, making sharp focus on the eyes a difficult task. Use an f numbers above f/5.6 will help to get sharp eyes on your portraits. Where there is more than one person in the frame, it is best to stay safe at f/11, because the eyes of each person may well be at a different focal length.

Don’t let a lower shutter speed mess up your portrait, as any movement of the camera or subject can take away from the sharpness of the eyes, so use a shutter speed that is twice the focal length. For example, if you are shooting at 85mm, use a shutter speed greater than 1/170 s. As a general rule, for even smaller focal lengths, it is best not to set a shutter speed below 1/125. Slightly increase the ISO, if required, to get the preferred shutter speed.

Focus On The Eyes

Although your camera’s autofocus system can be spot on, do not rely on it or the focus points, as a slight error in focusing can render a portrait useless. Use manual focus, zoom in on live view if required and make sure that you have the focus on the eyes sharp and make sure that both eyes are on the same focal plane to have them both in focus. This will be harder to achieve with the widest aperture and if the subject is partially turned, as both eyes will then be at different focal lengths.

If you really want to use the focus points on your camera, instead of doing focus recompose, you can toggle the focus point and choose a focus point over one eye (probably the one closer to the camera), like on the forehead.

Post Processing

Post processing cannot help sharpen eyes that are out of focus when captured. So get the eyes sharp in camera and use post-processing to improve the sharpness. However, once you have the eyes in focus, you will usually want to sharpen them slightly while post processing, to bring out the details in them and make them look great (pop).

In an app like Lightroom, you can use an adjustment brush tool to bring out details in the eyes by increasing sharpness, contrast, and a bit more saturation if needed. In something more powerful, like Photoshop, you can use a layer mask and use one of the sharpen filters to increase the sharpness in the eyes or even use the sharpen tool.

Either way, its best to not overdo it!