How to remove dark hair on arm?

[KenB]

Originally posted by Doug Nelson
Here's a little preview from the new edition of Katrin's book (I don't think she'll mind because she's also teaching this in her current seminars):

1. Select arm with zero feather
2. Apply gaussian blur until hair is gone, don't be afraid to go too high
3. Select the entire image
4. Define pattern
5. Use History to undo back to step 1, but leave arm selection
6. Select Healing Brush, huge size, zero feather
7. (here's the tricky part) Select "pattern" as source and use the pattern you just made. IMPORTANT: Click the "aligned" option
8. Paint within selected area with Healing Brush
9. While still selected, add monochrome Gaussian noise to match the rest of the image (not always needed, but helps with this particular image)

Don't forget to delete the pattern you just made, or it will eat up resources everytime you start Photoshop. Also, work on a merged layer. That way you can fine-tune (ie: add a layer mask, lower tranparency, cloning, etc.)

Doug I tried this technique, but I couldn't get it to work very well.
Number 5 , of your instructions, says to undo back to step 1, but leave the selecton. How do you do this? When I used history to go back to step one, I lost my selecton, even after saving the selection first. What am I doing wrong?

Ken

[Doug Nelson]

It sounds like you're simply going back one too many steps in the history. Try just going back to right before step 2.

[KenB]

Oh Geez, do I feel stupid, I think it was to late last night to be doing this stuff. Of course you're right, I was deleting everything after open in the history palette.

Thanks Doug

[Flora]

Thank you very much for the preview, Doug!

.... but here comes another question on the new techique....

...followed each step and got back to just the original selected arm .... my problem starts when I use the healing brush "huge size, zero feather" .... as it doesn't seem to blend the blurred (pattern) texture with the 'grainy' original one, but it substitutes it completely ....
.....

What am I doing wrong?

[Doug Nelson]

I doubt you're doing anything wrong. The result I got was a bit too smooth for this particular image, which is why I recommended adding some noise. This is more of a retouching technique as opposed to a restoring technique, so perhaps an image with obvious paper grain isn't the best use for it.

[Flora]

Got it!!!

Thanks Doug!