Removing 'mustache' on teenage girl

[Buster]

Hi, I have senior portraits taken the other day of a teenage girl. She has fairly obvious dark brown facial hair in mustache area, mostly at edges. (She is white skinned.) For small photo it might be OK but if blown up large I think it would be very obvious. How can I remove it without making a big blurry mess? Thanks!

[TommyO]

Of course, it depends on how much time you want to spend on each image, and what software you have.

Assuming you don't want to spend a lot of time, and have access to Photoshop or Elements, you could try the following. This can also be partially recorded into an action so you can at least save a few minutes.

1. copy background layer;
2. use Filter>Noise>Dust&Scratches, set to about radius=8, threshold=3;
(this will blur out the hairs)
3. use Edit>Define Pattern>, name it 01delete;
(this will create a duplicate image to pull from)
4. then Edit>Undo the Dust & Scratches;
(this will restore the duplicate layer)
5. select the Healing Brush, set Mode=normal, Source=Pattern, select your image, check aligned, sample=current layer;
6. adjust your brush size larger enough, then just simply paint away the hairs.

You should be able to record 1-6 and reuse that action on any image.

The concept is the same, no matter what type of blurring you use in step 2; try several.

There are so many other methods, I'm sure you will get plenty to choose from.

[mistermonday]

Depending on the image, this technique may work:
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=213
If you can upload a small section of the mouth area here, you may get some advice that will work for your specific image.
Regards, Murray

[Buster]

Thank you both. I'll try those techniques. Good point about spending time on EACH image. I forgot I'd have to do this on all of them.