How is the best way to remove stray hairs for a sleek look. You know the little hairs or split ends that seem to catch the light in even the most hair sprayed do's. I've tried a bit of dust & scratches to get rid of the really bright ones, but the effect still isn't that great. I've also used the healing brush and cloning (VERY time consuming if done right, muddy if done quick)

Let me know :)

Sarah

Can you post an image you're working on?

I don't have the image with me (I'm at the "dayjob") but here is a representation of what I'm talking about. Trying to get sleek hair where there is small strays/split ends sticking up. Some are much worse depending on lighting. I'm not referring to the outer edges of the hairline, but the hairs that stick out within the whole mass.

One thing that I do sometimes is to use the smudge tool, at about 15% strength, and run along the hair with a brush that has a lot of little dots in it (make a snapshot first). Then select the last smudge as the history brush source and I paint over the whole image, then select "Fade History Brush" from the main menu and fade to about 20%, paint again, fade again. Repeat about three times. This will remove most of the stray hairs that run along the hair, then you can clone out the hairs that run across it. Don't forget to sharpen the hair, select the sharpen state as the history brush source, back up, and paint over the hair.

Hope that helps,

Michael

Wow Michael!!!

Great result and thank you so much for a great Tip!!!!!

Thanks Flora,

That's high praise coming from you. :blush:

Michael

I'm going to have to give that a try on the one at home - gorgeous results.

LOL! I got distracted by this model's nose and was rebuilding her face. Not what I'm getting paid to do right now :)

Back to data entry...BLUCK!

Over in that other thread, there was some talk about anistropic things. Vector flow fields are very cool.

http://www.greyc.ensicaen.fr/~dtschump/greycstoration/demo.html
Near the bottom, called Inpainting, there are some examples of taking things out of photos and filling in gaps.

Took me a few days to fully understand, but my geekiness figured out how to do it with stock tools. Amazingly simple.

Attached is a test using the hair sample posted.
Just a quick test that I cobbled together in a few minutes.
Shows potential, but I'm not sure how well this technique will work in general just yet.
That is, it's going to take me awhile to figure out the pros, cons, suitable situations and what-not.

Would the techniques above work on this? I am so not having any luck.

Some nice results here, not thought much about changing the hair at this detail but very interesting might take a closer look.

"Nothing a good brush would'nt sort out"!! Had to say that befor someone else did LOL

Some nice results here, not thought much about chnging the hair at this detail but very interesting might take a closer look.

Huh? Ok you lost me.

Sorry grafx. I normally just work ith the hair and just try to adapt so always try to make sure the fly away hairs still come out in a background change or what ever edit, but I never thought much about actually digitally smoothing the hair so I found it an interesting thread and one I should work on myself to see the kind of results I get.

"Nothing a good brush would'nt sort out"!! Had to say that befor someone else did LOL

Yeah, fire that hair dresser!