Stray hairs over pattern

[timmy1729]

I have this picture of my wife that was taken at her uncle's wedding last year. I think it's a good picture. However, the main thing that is causing a problem is the stray hairs over the wallpaper pattern. How can I fix her hair? I am including links to the pictures in full resolution since we are talking about hair. I have found tutorial after tutorial about fixing stray hairs... on a plain and high-contrasted background. But, I haven't seen one that deals with this specific problem. What do I need to do to make this displayable at home or to put online? Would cloning a bit of hair to fill in some spots be something that would work? Also, what do you think of my work on this photo so far? Be honest so I can improve

Click on "Download" in the upper left to get the full resolution image.

Original

Needs-hair-help

[TommyO]

Well Timmy, you said to be honest....

Unfortunately, the retouch of her face is beginning to go a bit too far. The result is a bit flat in color and depth. You may want to go back and just work on some basic color correction and blemish removal. With basic snapshots, that's about all you really have to do. The resolution & detail from point-and-shoot cameras just don't allow for too much "retouch" work, such as seen on other images.

Regarding the stray hairs on her right, those will be a little tedious. Since the wallpaper repeats its pattern only every 36 inches or so, there is not a clean pattern to clone from. You will have to zoom in very close and clone slowly in very small increments. Be sure to copy that area to a new layer and work there.

[timmy1729]

Thanks for the assessment Tommy! The only way I know if I am doing something wrong is if someone tells me :-)

I was going to deal with the depth and color once I fixed her hair.

Actually, I do have a sample to clone from :-) I took a selection from another picture that day and put it into a layer in the psd file of this picture. I even set it to difference and used the transform and warp tools to make it fit. The only problem is the colors in the sample are too dark from being in a shadow.

Was the overall contrast and saturation going too far? I tried to make it look like it did when we were there.

[Daviskw]

Hi timmy

I did my example very quick and should have stretched the canvas in both directions but Oh well.

What I did was make a selection of the wallpaper just outside the flyaway hair.

Put this selection on its own layer then just stretched it to the right until I had all the flyaway hair covered.

Then I hide all with a mask and painted it back in covering the hair along the edge then the rest to match.

It stretched the wallpaper pattern distorting it...but if I had also stretched up as well as the the right it would have just made the pattern bigger rather then distorted.

Butch

[Cupcake]

I put a new background in.
Removed the hair strands.

Retouched the original picture.

Here is the large file:

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/5079/gold2f.jpg

[TommyO]

Originally Posted by timmy1729

Was the overall contrast and saturation going too far? I tried to make it look like it did when we were there.

No, I don't think so. On my monitor, the blues did need a little pop. I happened to like the originals' hair better; but, you know best what is realistic. My main concern was with the skin color loss, texture loss and depth.

Just remember, our eyes and brain are extremely sensitive to very small changes to color. You really don't have to alter skin much to make an impact. You just want to remove a tad of the flash and/or incandescent light impact. Then just a tiny amount of blemish removal.

I find that for most photographs taken today, it's best to start out in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). Do your basic exposure and color correction there. Then go to Photoshop and do the touch-ups. It's much easier and faster.

[timmy1729]

Thanks for the tips Tommy! I guess it's like when women say that the secret to wearing makeup is to look like you aren't wearing any. The secret to retouching is to make it look like it wasn't retouched at all, correct?

[Quantum3]

Originally Posted by timmy1729

Thanks for the tips Tommy! I guess it's like when women say that the secret to wearing makeup is to look like you aren't wearing any. The secret to retouching is to make it look like it wasn't retouched at all, correct?

Don't know how long this thread is but yes.