Please help change beard

[mediacop]

Hi, I'm working on a self-portrait inspired by John Lund. I can't seem to get my beard right. I would like to 1) change color to Black; and 2) extend to a point. Regarding color change, I've tried slective color but results don't look real - the color "blooms" and obscures the individual hairs. Regarding the point, I've tried the liquify tool, but it's almost impossible to extend the hairs in a natural looking line. I keep getting squiggles. Help in either (preferably both) areas would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Larry

[glikster]

it's a bit sloppy, but you can play with the channel mixer adjustment layers, just mask the beard, and then touch it back up to get pronounce the hairs afterwards.
Also, I used Liquify, the pucker tool, to get it somewhat pointed, how pointed do you want it?

[MBChamberlain]

I selected the blue channel, then created a black color layer with the selection still active. Then adjusted the curves on that layer to allow the background to show better. Painted out the areas other than the beard and used liquify to pull the beard to a point, saved the mesh and reran it on the mask of the black layer. The a little history brush to remove the distortion around the beard and this is what you get...

Michael

[LQQKER]

Well . . . Not really much to say on technique. I simply made some Hue & sat adjustments and multiply layer adjustments (several). Made the Facial hair to be similiar in color to eyebrows. To bring out the texture detail of the hairs I ran adapt.eq at about 85% when random cloned hairs were in place. Finished by erasing edges with high feather.

[Neve]

Hi Larry, I opted to make a selection of your beard, albeit squint at this late hour.

On a new layer, filled with black. Layer Blend Mode - Hard Light Opacity 58%. Smudged your beard to a point which obscured individual hairs. So cloned them onto to that section from upper beard.

Cheers

[mediacop]

I am honored by your efforts and humbled by your skills. Thank you Glickster, Michael, LQQKER, and Neve.

LQQKER, I am going to try to duplicate your method as I believe it produced very photo-realistic results, which is what I'm going for here. One question though, what is "adapt. eq"?

Thanks again everyone.

Larry

[Neve]

It's a filter from Reindeer Graphics - Adapative Equalization...

http://www.reindeergraphics.com/free.shtml

Cheers

[mediacop]

Good Morning,

I decided to try to create a brush from a sample of beard hairs. I made a several copy layers, building up the density of the black in each one; blended w/ multiply and reduced opacity to keep from losing texture. Used it on my eyebrows too.

Another advantage was that I could reshape without using liquify.

Thanks again everyone. And Neve, thanks for the link to the filter, I'll give it a try.

Best,

Larry

[www.retouch.ca]

Hey MediaCop:

How's this for a new beard? See attached file. Took about ten minutes. Used a black and white image of the beard and pasted it onto the color images. Erased some of it and did a curve adjustment to change the color. I then used the History brush to brush in the correction.

Glenn

[mediacop]

Hi Glenn,

That's an excellent result for only 10 minutes work!!! I love the salt n' pepper you managed to achieve.

Thanks again.