Hello everybody!

I been member here a while now and i got loads of experience here, really good site!

Im currently working on a photo where i want to retouch the skin, add shadows, fix skin tone etc.

I read alot of tutorials and i can fix the skin so its looks nice..but..
Now i have a tricky thing.. on the photo i want to remove all hair on the forearm.. I tried alot of thing, but nothing looks near natural :bawling:

Soo i wonder, is this even possible to make??

Anyone know if i can get a photo fixed for some cash? I doubt i ever gonna fix this myself!

Soo, heres the picture: http://www.tobbe13.com/DSC_0199.JPG

Are you looking to reduce the hair or totally de-nude the arm?

As a suggestion, I did a copy of the background layer, did a highpass filter on the image so it sharpened up the arm hairs and then inverted this filter. Set the blending mode to luminosity and reduced the opacity quite a bit until I got something that looked ok. Using a black mask, painted only over the areas I wanted to reduce. To remove the outer hairs which appear against the background, I just cloned the background areas onto a new layer.

Well I never tried what cass described so I let er rip. I found that after copying the layer and running the high pass filter and inverting, that vivid light blending mode seemed to help the hair removal. Yes I used a mask like cass and cloned the background over the protruding hairs.

phil, i took your image and added a little noise to the arm area so it doesnt look so smooth or retouched-----think it helps?

I did what cass did and the skin on my way of retouch i think it looks good, only i dont think you can get off all the hair.. im sorry.

R.

Hi there

Just for fun I did it a little different than the guys above.

I copied a section of his back.

Overlayed the arm and hid all with a mask

Then with a brush in lighten mode I painted the arm back in.

I used curves to get the skin close in color then reduced opacity to allow a little shadow below to come thru.

Then I duplicated the layer and applied burn and dodge where needed to match the old shading.

I didn't think you wanted it too smooth

Butch

I used the gaussian blur until I couldn't see the hair..then masked all (black), then brought the blurred skin back (white), lowered the layer mode to 75%. Smoothed the back while I was there..then added very low noise twice..and finished up with a very light unsharpen.

Lasa

Here is my try:)
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c154/MacKenzie02/DSC_0199mytry.jpg?t=1168062096

Hello everybody!

Been away this weekend, therefore the late replyes!

I must say, im deeply impressed about all of your works! I going to try Cassidy´s tecnique and see if i can get the same result :shocked:

Thanks alot everybody!

Here is my try:)
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c154/MacKenzie02/DSC_0199mytry.jpg?t=1168062096

Wow! Im impressed! Thats really looks nice, Its something like that i had in mind!

How did you do it? Used the same tecnique as cassidy posted?

Are you looking to reduce the hair or totally de-nude the arm?

As a suggestion, I did a copy of the background layer, did a highpass filter on the image so it sharpened up the arm hairs and then inverted this filter. Set the blending mode to luminosity and reduced the opacity quite a bit until I got something that looked ok. Using a black mask, painted only over the areas I wanted to reduce. To remove the outer hairs which appear against the background, I just cloned the background areas onto a new layer.

Hello Cassidy!

Yeah, i want remove all hair - but without its looks fake!

Im about to try your tips now, i´ll keep you updated =)

Hello again!

Ivé tried to follow cassidy´s advice, but i cant get it to look any good :depressed

I cant wait for topretouch´s answer how he did it, he also adjusted the skin so it looks tanned and nice.

I have uploaded my work here as a .psd, ive removed all blemishes etc, deleted the back. So its just the hair and the skin tone that i have left - but ill still trying!

http://www.tobbe13.com/Martin_Back_Edited.zip

Hey, first off topretouch is a woman. LOL I do all editing in paintshop. I am a pageant retoucher. Haven't mastered PhotoShop yet. I wish, one day I would get the courage and time. Any way what I did was
duplicate the background. Laso the part of the arm I was working with. Go to the background layer, gausin blur it to about 12 or so, till I couldnt see the hair anylonger. Go to the duplicate layer, sharpen it till I was satisfied then lowerd the opacity to that about to 42%. Then unselected it all. Merged the layers. Cloned a little bit until I was satisfied with the look. As far as making him tan, i pretty much used curves:) Hope this helps. I hope to get into more retouching like this in the future.
Thanks
DeeDee(topretouch)

Sometimes we can be too clever by half and looking at the original, the method I suggested doesn't work as well. I did the same as I suggested but instead of making the blending mode luminosity, I chose linear light as it did a better job. The Highpass setting was 19.6 and the opacity of the highpass layer with mask was 51%. As this removed pretty much all the texture, I copied a portion of the skin off the back (lighter part), using transform enlarged it and then using a mask gently painted the texture over the top using a 25ish opacity setting on the brush and restoring less of the texture to the wrist as opposed to the rest of the arm

Hey, first off topretouch is a woman. LOL I do all editing in paintshop. I am a pageant retoucher. Haven't mastered PhotoShop yet. I wish, one day I would get the courage and time. Any way what I did was
duplicate the background. Laso the part of the arm I was working with. Go to the background layer, gausin blur it to about 12 or so, till I couldnt see the hair anylonger. Go to the duplicate layer, sharpen it till I was satisfied then lowerd the opacity to that about to 42%. Then unselected it all. Merged the layers. Cloned a little bit until I was satisfied with the look. As far as making him tan, i pretty much used curves:) Hope this helps. I hope to get into more retouching like this in the future.
Thanks
DeeDee(topretouch)

Hey!

Im so sorry about that DeeDee :ditsy:

Thanks alot for sharing your info, i´ll try to use the same techique in Paint Shop Pro now and see how it works :D

I´ll keep you posted!

Sometimes we can be too clever by half and looking at the original, the method I suggested doesn't work as well. I did the same as I suggested but instead of making the blending mode luminosity, I chose linear light as it did a better job. The Highpass setting was 19.6 and the opacity of the highpass layer with mask was 51%. As this removed pretty much all the texture, I copied a portion of the skin off the back (lighter part), using transform enlarged it and then using a mask gently painted the texture over the top using a 25ish opacity setting on the brush and restoring less of the texture to the wrist as opposed to the rest of the arm

Hello Cassidy!

I tried the new suggestions with alot better result! Thanks alot!
Altough im not skilled enough i think :bawling: Becuse i cant get it to look "natural". A really hard part is the dark space between the underarm and the forearm i think.

If its possible and you want, do you (or someone else) can share the PSD with all the layers so i can understand what i do wrong :o:

Thanks alot again everybody for helping a rookie like me :classic:

Can you give me an addy to post to?.... don't entirely discount natural shadows either

Heya!

I have now looked at your work cassidy, i see that i have done almost the same as u did. The hard thing is to get it look natural and not to blurry and so.
Ivé now decided to keep some of the hair, think it looks the best!

Thanks alot for the help! I really like when people are so friendly and helpful!
Special thanks to Cassidy :classic:

Over and out!