Hi! Need help for removing front hair

[sirespen]

Hi everybody! I am new here and that's my first post. First of all i just love this forum. I know quite a few forum and this after 2 weeks I'm reading it becomes my favourite. Very friendly guys and a lot of useful information

Well, my name is Sebastian Bertoli, i live in the northern of Italy near the frontier to Austria (the region is called South tyrol and here we speak german and italian). I'm very interested in photography and since a few weeks also in retouching. In 3 months I'll go to Milan to join a school for photographers. But i like learning by myself and that's why I'm here .

I have one image from this thread: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...back-raws.html

I tried to remove the front hair...but the result it`s awful...i don't like it. I've found a few threads about removing front hair and different techniques, but i don't know what works best. I can't imagine to remove all that hair with D&B (?).

Here my first try...

P.S. I hope there aren't to much errors in my post...my English sucks, but I'm working on it

Ciaoo

[ashphotoart]

do not remove this much. Instead of remove all please add some so it will look natural and attractive.

Ash

[sirespen]

Add some hair after the retouch or remove less? I blured the skin (I know i'll go to hell)... and added some texture afterwords, but i'm afraid that it dont't work...

[Brian2]

Originally Posted by sirespen

Add some hair after the retouch or remove less? I blured the skin (I know i'll go to hell)... and added some texture afterwords, but i'm afraid that it dont't work...

Remove less hair. You want to keep a natural hairline.

[crazyfly1]

sirespen, welcome
This is quick and dirty to give you an idea. I used the selection tool to pick a small area to be corrected. Feathered the selection at 10 (soft edges are key). Moved that selection to a good portion of skin and jumped to new layer (control or command on mac + J). Use lighten blend mode and move the new layer to cover the area of hair, adjust opacity.

[sirespen]

Hi! Thx for your answer. Today i tried to use the clone tool + D&B, i haven't finished it yet but it doesn't impress me much (or maybe I'm only unable to do it right).

Your idea it's similar how i did, but I blured the skin before. The thing is that the texture u used from the front of the skin is inproper, because the skin on the boarders doesn't look like the skin in the middle of the forehead (correct me if I'm wrong)

I'll give it another try tomorrow.

Ciao!

[chillin]

You could see this post here.

[Daviskw]

Hi there

I am inserting this because I did not look at Blake's work above first...lol... excellent job..and you made my point below better than me...read on but look at Blake's

To me the trick is not what you take but what you leave...You need realistic hair root ending...not cut off if that makes any sense.

I made a feathered pen selection of the forehead area. I then used the clone tool set to lighten to remove the hair. I did not worry about texture just then.

After the area was cloned in I used the healing brush to transfer texture to the areas cloned.

I then used opacity and selective blur and masking to blend the texture.

I overlaid this finish layer with a copy of the original then using a mask and brush I removed selective hair...leaving the appearance of roots or ends.

Butch

[madclark]

This is a toughy because not only do you have a number of fine hairs instead of one strand or one clump, but the skin texture changes dramatically because of the lighting and the makeup from the forehead skin to the skin under the hair.

This was my fix. I used "Mama's Healing Hair Chore for Photoshop" technique and you can watch the tutorial video on YouTube at http://youtube.com/watch?v=OcKi9sGjLpE&feature=related, but then I also added two corrective layers on top of the hair fix.

One was a color layer to blend the makeup color of the skin into the hair line to make it less noticeable. The other was a luminosity layer to help blend the skin textures. Use the paintbrush and scrub over the the divide between the two and adjust the opacity.

[sirespen]

hi! thx you all for posting here. Unfortunatelly the telecom italia cut off my internet connection and i have to wait until Tuesday (at the moment I use a open wlan from the neighborhood).

@chillin: thx, I've read the thread and found some usefull information!
@daviskw: Nice! Looks great!
@madclark: looks also great, but did you forget the small pasrt over her left eyebrows?

the thing is, that the edges are the problem, i want to add some small hairs to let it look more realistic...I have to paint it, right?

Yesterday I've tried to cover a part of the hair with a new layer using the stamp tool and then to D&B...but I have the feeling that it won't work....

Ciaoo

[madclark]

Sirespen,

Maybe I'm trying to be too literal in the picture but the skin under the soft fine hairs have a very different silky texture to it. Do you see in the original how the skin texture changes there?

And if this weren't such a close-up of the area in question you might notice that cloning and healing over that with texture from the middle part of the forehead looks less realistic. So yes, at this zoom level, I can see like it looks undone, but it's more in consideration of the original than anything. I actually should have brought that smoothness in more that I did.

[sirespen]

another try...but it doesn't look particular realistic....now I'll try the other methods...

ciao

[madclark]

I actually think it looks pretty good. I would revisit the very top part, just to the right of the widow's peak, just to perfect that some. Remember it's about putting it in context. There's always a balance between perfect and real.

I think you've done a great job.

[sirespen]

oh, thx. But i'm wondering how "pro" would solve the problem? I used D&B and the stamp tool, different layers ecc.
I'm really a noob, but I don't understand the advantage in using d&B to remove the Hair.

[madclark]

Well the nice, and frustrating, thing about Photoshop is that there are always several ways to do the same thing. I think a "professional" approach is where you

a) survey the problem and have a strategy before you start anything
When you think the problem through, it will come to you the best way, within your abilities, how to try and handle it.

b) proceed in an orderly manner
Each layer should be perfected before adding another layer to tweak the look. Name your layers and make sure each has only one purpose working toward the resolution of your problem. Make sure you're never working on your original layer. And don't be afraid to blend the opacity. This will make the end result more realistic.

c) don't be afraid to throw it all away and start from the beginning.
Sometimes you lose your step along the way. Sometime what you think should work isn't. And I've found that it's sometimes easier to start from the beginning than take all the time figure out what went wrong in the first place and try to fix your fixes.