Help with hair

imagesofhim

I don't know if this is in the right thread or not... (Mod, please move if necessary!)

Anyway, I've got PS4 and LR2 (I'm not very good at LR2)... I've tried to clone, I've tried to heal, I've tried to brush... I can't get the alfalfa hair out without looking bad... Can someone please help?

Icebear

Easy!
Just upgrade to CS5. Content Aware Fill.

Hey, it's only money.

imagesofhim

Any other thoughts?

Icebear

Have you tried just reducing the visibility of the offending hair (and it does not bother me anyway) by cloning it out in a new layer and messing with a mask and visibility?

BradfordBenn

The healing tool in PS might be able to take it out, I am by no means an expert but I have used it to take out power lines and the like. I have found the smaller the brush size the better. Of course your mileage may vary.

pathfinder

If you do have CS5, here is a great video about the new mask tool and the refine edge command by Martin Evening

Icebear

That's a great video, unfortunately she apparently has CS4. Actually I wasn't kidding (entirely) in my first response. An upgrade doesn't cost THAT much, and CS5 really is a vastly superior product IMO.

basflt

not everyone is in the position to buy a new software every year
this hair can be easily retouched with earlier versions or any other photo-editor that has a clone-tool and a smear-brush

ziggy53

In CS4 work with 2 layers. First, build an upper layer of just the top part of her hair. Work on getting that to look natural which can mean cloning in hair across the stray hair. After you get that looking convincing, work on the background to clone out the unusable hair.

I can demonstrate if you like.

imagesofhim

ziggy53 wrote: »

In CS4 work with 2 layers. First, build an upper layer of just the top part of her hair. Work on getting that to look natural which can mean cloning in hair across the stray hair. After you get that looking convincing, work on the background to clone out the unusable hair.

I can demonstrate if you like.

A demonstration would be GREATLY appreciated... I think I understand, but I probably don't!

ziggy53

Starting with permission from the original poster (Marjohn), I got a copy of the original resolution image. My proposed solution turns the original problem area from this:



... to this:



Mini tutorial to follow.

Icebear

You da man, Ziggy!

ziggy53

One thing I noticed while looking at the original image, that I didn't see in the smaller version, is that there is a tuft of hair that looked usable for helping with a solution. While I did things a little backward in reality, I'll describe the likely way most folks would proceed.

Starting with the original image, make a duplicate in a new layer.

Going back to the original background image (bottom layer), use a large brush in Clone mode and clone the tree trunks back down to the top of the lady's head, eliminating, or at least greatly reducing, the fly-away problem hair. You want to wind up with something like this:



You'll want to be a little more careful than I was about repeating patterns, so use different sample regions and even different sized brushes to give some randomness to the bark, but this step alone helps the situation a lot. Try both hard edged and soft edged brushes to get the effect you are looking for.

Now move up a layer and select just a rectangular region of the single tuft of hair on the viewer's right side of the lady's head. Once selected, copy the region to a new layer using "Layer - New - Layer via Copy".

In the new layer, use a soft shape in "Eraser" mode and try to get down to just the tuft of hair by itself. Kind of like this:



Select this hair tuft again with the Rectangle, then "Edit - Copy" (or "Ctrl-C").

"File - New", to create a new file with the right size, then "Edit - Paste" (or "Ctrl-V") to paste the region you previously copied. Now you have a new file with just the hair tuft on a layer atop a white background. (Yes, there are other ways to do this operation, but this method will work in Photoshop all the way back to version 7 at least.)

Now flip the image horizontally with "Image - Image Rotation - Flip Canvas Horizontal". Select - All and then Edit - Copy as above.

Now move back to your original image and Edit - Paste the flipped hair tuft onto the viewer's left side of the lady's head. Make at least one more copy while you're at it.

Position the tuft loosely where it's needed and then Edit - Free Transform to rotate the tuft to match the way the hair drapes on the lady. In other words try to match the existing hair. Note that you should also use some color adjustments and layer opacity adjustments to get the new tufts to match the existing hair.

Also move the original isolated tuft a little higher on the right side, to help cover some of the hair that would have been affected by the previous clone work to the tree trunks which affected the hair. When you're done you should have three tufts of hair that look something like the following when they are isolated and separate:



When these three tufs of hair are overlayed atop the background layer, that was previously cloned with tree trunk, they should provide cover for the unruly hair remnants as well as provide a slightly better hair boundary for the top of the head (IMO).



With a little more care than I gave it I think you can come up with a very convincing rendition.

imagesofhim

ziggy53 wrote: »

One thing I noticed while looking at the original image, that I didn't see in the smaller version, is that there is a tuft of hair that looked usable for helping with a solution. While I did things a little backward in reality, I'll describe the likely way most folks would proceed.

Starting with the original image, make a duplicate in a new layer.

Going back to the original background image (bottom layer), use a large brush in Clone mode and clone the tree trunks back down to the top of the lady's head, eliminating, or at least greatly reducing, the fly-away problem hair. You want to wind up with something like this:



You'll want to be a little more careful than I was about repeating patterns, so use different sample regions and even different sized brushes to give some randomness to the bark, but this step alone helps the situation a lot. Try both hard edged and soft edged brushes to get the effect you are looking for.

Now move up a layer and select just a rectangular region of the single tuft of hair on the viewer's right side of the lady's head. Once selected, copy the region to a new layer using "Layer - New - Layer via Copy".

In the new layer, use a soft shape in "Eraser" mode and try to get down to just the tuft of hair by itself. Kind of like this:



Select this hair tuft again with the Rectangle, then "Edit - Copy" (or "Ctrl-C").

"File - New", to create a new file with the right size, then "Edit - Paste" (or "Ctrl-V") to paste the region you previously copied. Now you have a new file with just the hair tuft on a layer atop a white background. (Yes, there are other ways to do this operation, but this method will work in Photoshop all the way back to version 7 at least.)

Now flip the image horizontally with "Image - Image Rotation - Flip Canvas Horizontal". Select - All and then Edit - Copy as above.

Now move back to your original image and Edit - Paste the flipped hair tuft onto the viewer's left side of the lady's head. Make at least one more copy while you're at it.

Position the tuft loosely where it's needed and then Edit - Free Transform to rotate the tuft to match the way the hair drapes on the lady. In other words try to match the existing hair. Note that you should also use some color adjustments and layer opacity adjustments to get the new tufts to match the existing hair.

Also move the original isolated tuft a little higher on the right side, to help cover some of the hair that would have been affected by the previous clone work to the tree trunks which affected the hair. When you're done you should have three tufts of hair that look something like the following when they are isolated and separate:



When these three tufs of hair are overlayed atop the background layer, that was previously cloned with tree trunk, they should provide cover for the unruly hair remnants as well as provide a slightly better hair boundary for the top of the head (IMO).



With a little more care than I gave it I think you can come up with a very convincing rendition.

Thank you sooooo much! I've been playing with it and I think I'll be able to get it finished this weekend!

ziggy53

imagesofhim wrote: »

Thank you sooooo much! I've been playing with it and I think I'll be able to get it finished this weekend!

Best of luck, and if you have questions feel free to ask back here.