你有没有这样的经历，照片拍出来之后，你才惊讶的发现，自己的眼睛怎么被拍成了红色的？我们又该如何避免这种情况的发生呢？

We've all see photographs where the people in the picture have spooky red eyes. These are photos taken at night with a flash. Where do the red eyes come from?

The red color comes from light that reflects off of the retinas(视网膜) in our eyes. In many animals, including dogs, cats and deer, the retina has a special reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum that acts almost like a mirror at the backs of their eyes. If you shine a flashlight or headlights into their eyes at night, their eyes shine back with bright, white light.

Among many nocturnal vertebrates the white compound guanine is found in the epithelium（上皮细胞） or retina of the eye. This provides a mirrorlike surface, the tapetum lucidum, which reflects light outward and thereby allows a second chance for its absorption by visual pigments（视色素） at very low light intensities. Tapeta lucida produce the familiar eyeshine of nocturnal animals.

Humans don't have this tapetum lucidum layer in their retinas. If you shine a flashlight in a person's eyes at night, you don't see any sort of reflection. The flash on a camera is bright enough, however, to cause a reflection off of the retina -- what you see is the red color from the blood vessels nourishing the eye.

Many cameras have a "red eye reduction" feature. In these cameras, the flash goes off twice -- once right before the picture is taken, and then again to actually take the picture. The first flash causes people's pupils（瞳孔） to contract, reducing "red eye" significantly. Another trick is to turn on all the lights in the room, which also contracts the pupil.

Another way to reduce or eliminate "red eye" in pictures is to move the flash away from the lens. On most small cameras, the flash is only an inch or two away from the lens, so the reflection comes right back into the lens and shows up on the film. If you can detach the flash and hold it several feet away from the lens, that helps a lot. You can also try bouncing the flash off the ceiling if that is an option.

（改编自：howstuffworks.com 实习生许雅宁 英语点津 Annabel 编辑）

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