Remove hair highlight

[tsavoie]

I have a picture of my daughter that I'm touching up and she has a few strands of hair that are highlighted, around the edge of her face. The highlight stands out too much in the picture so I'd like to blend it in, similar to other less dramatic highlighted areas of hair. I'm not sure the best way to accomplish this. Any suggestions would be welcome.

[Peter S]

If you post a small example we will be able to comment better

[maureeno]

Originally Posted by tsavoie

I have a picture of my daughter that I'm touching up and she has a few strands of hair that are highlighted, around the edge of her face. The highlight stands out too much in the picture so I'd like to blend it in, similar to other less dramatic highlighted areas of hair. I'm not sure the best way to accomplish this. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Have you tried a light pass with the Burn tool set low over those highlights?

Maureen

[tsavoie]

Sorry - forgot to upload the picture. See attached. The hilighted strands are the ones in the front, top middle, falling down the right side of her face.

[Cassidy]

Tsavoie, I think the easiest way to do this is to use the eyedropper and selection a median colour area of the hair and then create a new layer and set the blending mode to luminosity. Using a small soft paintbrush starting with an opacity of around 25%-35% start to brush the areas you want softened.

[bart_hickman]

Just like what Cassidy said except set the blend mode to "darken". This way you save the texture that's already there.

Yet another idea. Try the clone brush instead of a regular brush on this darken layer. This might help add texture if there's not enough to begin with.

Bart

[Flora]

Hi tsavoie,

Welcome to RP!

Just Like Cassidy and Bart suggested ... I created a new Blank Layer, set its mode to darken and, after sampling colour from darker areas close to the Highlights, I painted over them with a soft brush (Opacity 30-40%) .

[Gary Richardson]

Did pretty much the same as Flora to correct the highlight, except I used a 100% brush, and decreased the layer opacity to get the result I wanted.

Also colour corrected and brightened it a little with levels and curves adj layers.

[philbach]

Well I just took Gary's Picture and used the liquify filter on the edges of her mouth to turn the edges up some.

[tsavoie]

Very simple yet very effective! Thanks for the help. This was easy to tone down these hair strands so as not to detract from the rest of her face. Thanks again for the tips.

[bart_hickman]

Flora, truth-be-told I got the idea from one of your posts a while back.

Bart

[Klaatu Baradda]

Well, as you can see by the responses, there are numerous methods for changing the color of hair for you to contemplate.

With that said, lets toss out ANOTHER method to consider that is fairly straight-forward and takes mere seconds to accomplish.

1) Select the Clone Stamp Tool
2) Set it's Blend Mode (in the Control Bar) to Color, pick a nice soft brush set to about 50% opacity, then set your tool reference point (opt/alt+click... you can change this on the fly as you need) and start painting.

The advantages to this are that it's quick, simple and fast. The Clone Stamp Tool set to Color only affects the color information while leaving the hair structure alone. Pretty cool, huh?

This is a favorite technique we use to also color hair-roots that are of a different color.

This took less than 45 seconds to do.

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by Klaatu Baradda

Well, as you can see by the responses, there are numerous methods for changing the color of hair for you to contemplate.

With that said, lets toss out ANOTHER method to consider that is fairly straight-forward and takes mere seconds to accomplish.

1) Select the Clone Stamp Tool
2) Set it's Blend Mode (in the Control Bar) to Color, pick a nice soft brush set to about 50% opacity, then set your tool reference point (opt/alt+click... you can change this on the fly as you need) and start painting.

The advantages to this are that it's quick, simple and fast. The Clone Stamp Tool set to Color only affects the color information while leaving the hair structure alone. Pretty cool, huh?

This is a favorite technique we use to also color hair-roots that are of a different color.

This took less than 45 seconds to do.

That didn't work for me! Just getting a light grey instead of the yellow.
What did I do wrong?

[Flora]

Hi Tessa,

Welcome to RP!

That didn't work for me! Just getting a light grey instead of the yellow.
What did I do wrong?

What might have happened there is that either:

* you forgot to sample color and used white or black instead, (when correcting colours by painting on a layer set to Coloror or cloning in Color Mode with either a black or white brush, the result is usually grey ...)

or:

* the colour you sampled was either very light or very dark which brings back to what written in the previous paragraph ...

You could start by sampling from medium tone colours and experiment with lighter or darker colours ... this should get you closer to the result you wish ...

Hope this helps ...

[Klaatu Baradda]

Good catch Flora, we should have elaborated on this a bit more.

Sampling colors which are "nearly black" or "nearly white" will basically desaturate the image wherever you paint. Consequently, you need to pick an area that has some nice middle tones to use as a reference point.

Also, if you are trying to clone to a new layer (which is a good idea), be sure to:
1) Set the Clone Stamp Tool to Sample All Layers in the Options Bar
2) select your Background layer
3) opt/alt+click your reference point
4) Then select the top layer to start painting.

Another helpful tip with the Clone Stamp Tool (particularly with this method) is to turn-off Aligned so that you continue to sample (with each click) the same area. This is especially useful when you don't have much mid-tone color (or a very limited area of it) to sample.

Flora, you are amazing.

[Tessa]

Hi Tessa,

Welcome to RP!

Thank you Flora!

And thanks both of you for your tips, but none of them worked. I even tried the extra layer before I posted too, to be sure, but then the clone stamp behaved as an ordinary cloning tool, even though I set "sample all layers" and "Color" in the option bar.

But...then I tried today again on a different picture and it worked out just fine. Even the clone stamp tool and an extra layer behaved as it should with these settings, but still I can't make it work on the picture enclosed!
Bugs? I really don't know...