How-To

How to Fix Red-Eye on iPhone

By Adam Davidson

Published July 10, 2022

If you’re using flash, iPhone photos can sometimes give your subjects bright red eyes. Learn how to fix red-eye on iPhone.

You’re having a great night out. You want to capture the moment, so you pull out your iPhone and take a snap. It’s the perfect photo of your friends, but for one glaring issue: both of your friends have bright red eyes that make them look like they’re possessed.

The good news is that it’s possible to fix this problem on your iPhone. It will work on any photo, although you’ll need to use a workaround for images that weren’t taken with flash.

Here’s how to fix red-eye on iPhone.

How to Fix Red Eye on an iPhone Photo Taken With Flash

The red-eye correction tool on iPhone only appears when you edit photos taken with the flash. This mostly makes sense since flash is the leading cause of red-eye, although red-eye can occur even if you don’t use the flash.

To fix red-eye on iPhone photos taken with flash:

1. Open the Photos app and find the photo you want to fix.
2. Tap Edit in the top-right corner of the screen.
   
3. Tap on the Red Eye tool. If it’s not showing, the photo wasn’t taken on your phone using flash. See the next section for how to fix this.
   
4. You’ll see an instruction to tap each red-eye.
   
5. Tap one of the eyes, and it should turn black. If you’re inaccurate, you may get a message that red-eye could not be found. Try again until the eye turns black.
   
6. Repeat for the other eye.
7. When you’re finished, tap Done to save the changes.
   

How to Fix Red Eye on Any Photo

If your photo wasn’t taken on your iPhone with the flash turned on, you won’t see the Red Eye tool in the editing toolbar. However, there is a way to work around this; if you take a screenshot of your photo, the Red Eye tool will appear for the screenshot.

To take a screenshot of a photo on iPhone:

1. Launch the Photos app and open the photo you want to screenshot.
2. On an iPhone with a home button, press the top or side button and home button simultaneously.
3. On an iPhone with Face ID, press the side button and volume up button at the same time.
4. You’ll see a thumbnail of your screenshot appear in the bottom-left of the screen.
   
5. Tap on the thumbnail to edit your screenshot.
6. Tap and hold on one of the handles on the border of your screenshot.
   
7. Drag the borders until they are tight around your image.
   
8. Tap Done.
   
9. Tap Save to Photos to save the screenshot to your camera roll.
   
10. Open the image and tap Edit.
    
11. You should now see the Red Eye tool.
    
12. Follow the steps in the section above to fix the red-eye on the image.

Improve Your iPhone Photos

Knowing how to fix red-eye on iPhone is just one way to improve your iPhone photos.

Learning some tips for taking the best pictures on iPhone can ensure that you don’t need to make edits to your photos so often. While editing photos, there are some features you may not have been aware of. For example, you can draw on your iPhone photos or even merge pictures. It’s even possible to create long-exposure photos on iPhone.