This is the request thrown at me the other day. I have a very crude version created, but would love to present a 'tada' to the requester, and learn this one for myself. I have zero idea how to do it.

Can anyone help me? Even general 'hair colour change' info would be great. I can to some extent do it (as I said very crude) but lose texture and depth and all sorts of other things I don't know the names for, haha.

I do have 'sarsas hair brushes' if that makes a difference :)

I do have a few pics available so if this one is absolutely hopeless please let me know and I'll use another.

And just to make it a bit harder she has a streak of red through :tongue:

The request is for a friend, not a client, just FYI.

Well here is a hair dye

I'm assuming she really just wants the pink streaks removing?

In lab mode this is very easy, the pink streaks are all in the A channel. I painted directly on the A channel with a slightly darker than 50% grey at a low opacity, I took the yellow down a little bit on the B channel too - it all depends what shade of blonde she wants.

Oooh the streaks were a mistake so she'll love to see them removed.

She wants platinum, believe it or not. I don't know if it is do-able though. I'm not having a lot of luck with it. I managed to get it blonde in a way that is very similar to Phils attempt, I guess I'm wondering if there is another way, or a way to make it look 'real'

I'll show you mine :) It has a lot of red in it still (I did read tonight red is a **** to get out)

Hi Aylaah.

Platinum Blonde.
I used channel mixer and a layer mask to desaturate and lighten the hair and then a layer set to colour to paint some colour back.

Ken.

Cool!

Skin tone has proven a problem in a lot of shots, whether they be my snaps or someone elses work, she often comes up much lighter than she is. She's Chilean, and has colouring typical of South America (I guess, as in what you see when you think it, as opposed to what may actually exist) Well for me over here, anyway, lol. We got some professional shots back recently and she looks white, almost as white as me, and I'm a pale, typical english skinned lass, like I live without sunlight, all a bit spooky for her, lol. most pictures have copped a tan, I was trying out a PSP demo and the suntan tool was very very handy at returning her 'real' colour!

Well, this image is pretty grainy and low contrast, so I ended up extracting her hair from the picture and then changing the color of the hair by itself. I attached the plat blonde and also a hairdo that matches her outfit better ( :)

Bart

They are great! Love the pink!

the image is absolutely as downloaded off the camera, so it alone could do with some work, although I'm pretty much considering dumping these and starting again with the better camera.

not sure platinum is the best choice here, but ok :)

craig

My attempt at platinum. Getting such a pale colour is very difficult - take it too far and it can go horrbly wrong.
I used curves to get the magenta and cyan equal and the yellow a little higher, with her hair not being an even shade to start with, my hand adjustments in LAB may have gone too far in places - but you get the idea.

I selected her hair and copied it to a new layer where I set the blend mode to screen. Then I flattened it and selected the still pink areas and copied it to it's own layer then went to Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation and, with colorized checked, changed it to a yellow tone. I flattened the layers and Alt clicked the Add New Layer icon and in the dialog box set the blend mode to Color Dodge and checked the Fill with 50% gray box..... using a soft white brush at low opacity, enhanced the highlights..... I blurred this and adjusted the opacity then flattened the layers again...... after all that I hit Ctrl + J and ran the top layer thru Namesuppressed softening filter and lowered the opacity of that layer and flattened it all.


Oh yow ....... gave her a few more brows ......

Thank you everyone :)

just to let you know, the model is very impressed with your work (as am I) and is staying right away from the platinum hair dye, lol

Although she is now considering the pink!

Thanks also for pointing out what you did, where and how, so that I, a newbie to the world of a photo being more than it may appear, can learn :)

ok, i took another shot at this. since your friend seems to be considering changing her hair color, i went looking for something i liked. what i used was her skin tones and tried to complement those as best i could. i also ran some noise reduction, darkened her lip color and cleaned up the background a bit.

the technique i used here is one i was taught by a professional photographer/editor. he used to work for Maxim magazine and is now freelance. the technique is simplicity itself.

make a new blank layer. fill it with the desired color, change the blend mode to 'color' or 'hue'. erase the parts of the fill that dont apply to the area you want changed. on the fringes of the area, generally you set your eraser to a low opacity to allow for blending along the fringes and into the background. what's left on the layer will be what you want to change. by using tools and filters you can then also change the color again very easily to whatever you wish.

i took a sample of her hair color to use as the fill and went just a shade or two lighter with it and then filled the blank layer. erased what i didnt want to change, and used both the 'hue map' and 'hue/saturation' tools to alter it a bit more. very simple. very fast and very manipulatable for changes later, if desired.

for some reason i had quit using this method, but i'm back with it now.

craig