Creating Hair!?!?!

[JamesEssex]

How the hell do you create hair?!

I have this picture of my best buddy which I have retouched, her skin mainly. But the light has created her hair to glow and I would like it to look more like the clear bits of hair!!

Any tips??

[JamesEssex]

Hello!

Does anyone know how to change the glowing hair in this picture I have of my friend?

I have retouched her skin for a smooth complexion but she wants me to restore her hair?!

Heeeeeeeeeeeelp

[Sean2]

Hello James,

You could try making a "hair brush". A series of spots equi-distance from one another. the attached picture shows what you could do in three minutes or less. However, it may not be what you want with "individual hairs". Gave it a shot though.

Looks like a poser shot, but beautiful none-the-less.

Sean

[JamesEssex]

cool, looks better! Not as realistic as I hoped altho if it was done very slowly etc!

cheers mate....she aint a poser! lol

[cspringer]

Does it have any detail in the original?

[Caitlin]

Well you've got two options I think - resample from her existing hair, or use a hair brush. Flora posted a link to an incredible resource of hair bushes a while ago. It takes a bit of practice to get good results, but it's fun learning: link

I tried the other technique - a combination of clone stamp and pattern stamp (the clone stamp is probably better though), as well as the patch tool which was quite effective adding some pattern, while maintaining the balance. This took me 5 minutes - I'm sure you could do something much better with a bit more time - I was actually surprised how easy it was to do.

You can see a quite different result on the two sides of her face - her right is primarily the pattern stamp (not totally effective) and the left is clone stamp and patch tool (big patch areas).

A combination of this technique with the use of a hair brush would probably work quite well!

ps. I quite like the blown-out hair!

[Gary Richardson]

Did basically what Caitlin suggests. ie Copied and pasted sections of existing hair into blown out areas. Resized and reshaped some of the patches using Free Transform tool, cloned to hide joins. Hairbrushed in a couple of areas.

Not great, but did'nt have a lot of time, with a bit more care I'm sure you could get an acceptable result.

[Sean2]

That's very nice Gary, Well done!

Good suggestions Caitlin.

Sean

[Fluffbutt]

You could always sort of 'cheat' and make it look deliberate (attached).

I prefer the blown-out version - she looks stunningly beautiful. As I'd imagine an Angel to look...

[Flora]

Hi,

unfortunately the blown areas are 'solid' colour blocks with no detail whatsoever.. Would have helped if you had another picture of the girl with all her hair showing!!!

'Reconstructing' realistic hair is very difficult, at least for me, and wind-blown hair even more so .... ... so for everybody !!!

Working in the same direction, I created two 'hair' brushes, one with what was visible of her own hair, and another from another picture ...

[Sean2]

Hello Fluffbutt,


Your effort looks very interesting. How did you achieve the diagonal striations? a color motion blur?

perplexed :-)

sean

[JamesEssex]

wow!!! Thanks guys.

All your pictures were a great help! She is pleased with the new look of the photo! I'm trying to convince her to stick with the original! But its up to her I guess!!

Thanks again for your help! If I have any more probs, I'll be sure to ask you!
Thanx

james x

[JamesEssex]

Nope! This is our problem! I have other pictures taken on the same day but without the same lighting!

[Duv]

A little rough around the edges James, but the only thing I could think of was some selection with Color Range and Cloning followed by some Healing.

cheers
Dave

[Doug Nelson]

I like the original