Lightening dark hair

[chloe625]

I have been asked to lighten her hair to pale blonde. I tried dodging and brightening among other things but the color is not coming out right. I would even try grafting on hair from another photo but I can't find anything similar in blonde. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[chloe625]

Ok, specifically I am trying for silver blonde (and yes I had to recolor her eyes violet), here is my pathetic attempt so you can see how desperately I need help.

[Xaran]

If it's any help the attached was done with Instant Hair available from Renderosity.

Christine

[mileeeeeeenaaaa]

omg chloe!
how did you do that?!?!? it looks so professional!

i usually
select the hair
feather the selection
make a new layer from it
duplicate layer
lighten the hair layer using levels
make another new layer on top of it
paint a yelowish butter colour over it
change the blending mode to colour
then clean it up

but it never looks as good as yours!
sometimes it doesnt even work
and when it does the result is extremely reddish

if you would reply to the thread i would so so so so so greatful!

from milena.

[chloe625]

Thanks for your comments.

Xaran, that is a really interesting tool, I will have to check that out.

milena, I first tried what you described and then I ended up using the dodge tool mostly to try to highlight specific areas. I also use the desaturate (sponge) tool to remove orange and red.

I tried to fix the other side, which was completely in shadow before...I think I may have just made more of a mess but have a look...

[mileeeeeeenaaaa]

very nice.
my only critique is that it is mildly blurred.
this might have been your intention, but i think it doesnt add to the portrait.
what i think might have been better is if you can still see the individual strands, it makes it look much more realistic.
other than that, great job (:

[igot2pman]

You will probably get a better result then I did, as you have the full resolution. I understand how hard it is to change dark hair, or eyes. Its not easy...

I took things a diffrent way, using a combo of hue sat, and selective color. Could use some D&B but i'll leave that to you.

I like what you have done with it so far. This is just a diffrent way of thinking about things. I made an action below that will recreate the hair. Look through the settings and Learn, maybe you can apply some to what you have you already done.

Just unzip, and click on it to load. Then open your original image (or turn off what you have already done) and push play. Then mask out the face (on the global folder mask) and adjust the levels and B&C as needed.

Hope this helps,
-Keven

[chloe625]

thanks Keven, I like the result of your technique. I'm gonna play around with that..

[mistermonday]

The hair color is fairly easy to make blond if you use a Gradient Map adjustment layer. The difficult part is masking off the hair. The background color behind the hair is very close in luminance to the hair itself that it will be difficult to create a good transition. With a Gradient Map you have a lot of flexibility in the resulting colors between the shadow and highlight areas.
Here is a sample with no attempt to mask off the hair well.
Regards, Murray

[chillin]

I started off with a channel mixer, to lighten the hair.
Next, I used couple of curves & HSL layers.

[igot2pman]

Chillen,

I like what you did to lightn the hair, mainly the black areas in red. I have never used the channel mixer. I just tried messing with it with it but had no luck in lifting thouse shadows. I also tryed levels and curves and there is just no color there or texture.

Can you go into more detail on how to lightn with the channel mixer. Possibly some settings, that you used. Or is there some other way you brought the detail into thouse areas?

Thanks is advance,
-Keven

[0lBaldy]

How Bout Platinum?
Using Strokers' Transparent Shades plugin found <Here>

[chloe625]

Originally Posted by 0lBaldy

How Bout Platinum?
Using Strokers' Transparent Shades plugin found <Here>

wow very cool. I'm going to go download that asap.

[chillin]

Originally Posted by igot2pman

Chillen,
Can you go into more detail on how to lightn with the channel mixer. Possibly some settings, that you used. Or is there some other way you brought the detail into thouse areas?
Thanks is advance,
-Keven

I put together a short gif for you.

[igot2pman]

I too have been messing with that Plugin, it's very interesting.

Some of what I have found:

Contrast boost:
duplicate background>>use plugin>>blending mode soft light

Lifts shadows:
duplicate background>>use plugin>>blending mode screen

Lifts shadows more:
duplicate background>>use plugin>>blending mode screen>>
duplicate layer>>Invert>>blending mode luminosity>> opacity 10%

For the pictures below I was using the plugin at max.

-Keven

[igot2pman]

Thanks Chillin,

Learn something new every day...

[0lBaldy]

Guess I should mention that I used Transparent Shades plugin settings "Invert" @ Amount 255 to get the results in my previous post