Hair Retouching

Getting your subject's hair to look both natural and flawless is a subtle but essential part of all high-quality fashion, beauty, or portrait images. While you can have an amazing hairstylist on set to help diminish work in post, your subject's hair will almost always need some amount of retouching. Though many of the same concepts are used to retouch your subject's hair and face, the techniques and challenges of cleaning up hair vary. This tutorial will help you learn how to take on each hair challenge and produce clean editorial and commercial results. 

This course is not for someone who is new to Photoshop. It requires a basic knowledge of layers, blending modes, and masks. That said, when you download this course, you will also receive additional details for the tools used in the video lessons as well as the PSD files so you can follow along and practice these techniques yourself. On page 12 of the digital guide PDF, you will be given optional assignments to follow along with for each PSD, helping you to master the skills you've just been taught. 

The purpose of this course is to teach you simple techniques that will save you lots of time when tackling the most common retouching problems hair presents for any commercial, portrait or fashion images. 

Course Description

Intro: Typical Challenges and Course Outline

• Typical Hair Retouching Challenges
• The Course Outline
• The Images We Will Be Using

Lesson 1: Cleaning Up the Periphery of the Hair

• Video 1.1:  Removing Hair in Bulk

• Video 1.2:  Drawing in Hair Strands

• Video 1.3:  Adding Noise

Lesson 2: Cleaning Up the Interior of the Hair

• Video 2.1:  Strays Crossing Face

• Video 2.2:  Interior Hair Removal: Using the Spot Healing Brush

• Video 2.3:  Strays Crossing Hair

Lessons 3-5: Advanced Periphery Cleanup

• Video 3:  Outside Edge Cleanup: Grafting Hair

• Video 4:  Stray Hairs Cleanup: Brute Force Method

• Video 5.1-5.3:  Advanced Outside Edge Grafting

Lesson 6: Interior Hair Grafting

• Video 6.1: Covering up Revealed Scalp

• Video 6.2: Filling Gaps Against Background

Lessons 7-10: Dodging and Burning, Color Correcting, and Shaping Hair

• Video 7:  Dodging and Burning for Hair Retouching

• Video 8:  Color Correcting Hair Shade Inconsistencies

• Video 9:  Dodging and Burning to Contour Hair

• Video 10:  Shaping Hair

Lesson 11: Advanced Hair Repair: Cleaning Up Forehead and Removing Baby Hair

• Video 11.1:  Grafting Skin to Cover up Baby Hair

• Video 11.2: Using Frequency Separation to Clean Ip Forehead

• Video 11.3:  Fine-Tuning the Results Achieved in the Previous Two Videos

• Video 11.4: Refining the Appearance of the Created Hairline

Lesson 12: Wig Hairline Repair

• Video 12:  Using Frequency Separation and Other Tools to Improve the Appearance of a Wig Hairline

Bonus Materials

Besides the layered PSD files, the custom brushes and actions that Michael mentions in the video lessons are also included in the download:

• RA Hair & BG Brushes.abr: our custom brushes for background work and drawing in hair strands in focus and slightly out of focus
• RA HR Custom Actions.atn: our custom actions that will set up the necessary layers for your dodging and burning and frequency separation work.

If you're looking to expand your retouching skills even further, Michael Woloszynowicz also teaches some excellent classes on how to dodge and burn and color grade your images.