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3 Ways to Retouch Fly-Away Hair

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

Introduction

I really enjoy portraiture. When it's done well, it is very satisfying and tells a lot about the person in the photo. However, there is always a little element that is a constant problem for me: fly-away hair, frizzies, or whatever you call them. They're the strands of hair that stick out from the person's head and make your photo look a little messy. Especially with corporate or fashion photographs, they're practically unacceptable and must go.
I'll be showing you three techniques that will give you options when tackling those pesky follicles while keeping the final result natural-looking. As with any retouching, it's a balancing act of taste vs need while keeping it realistic. If you go too far, then you'll end up with "helmet hair" which often looks fake.
Retouching an image is supposed to be done well and subtle enough that the viewer doesn't notice it. A lot of that comes from producing the shot properly in the first place, but the rest comes from good technique and application. So, having your subject well-groomed or using a hair stylist can be really helpful in reducing the amount of time and effort needed to fix hair's errant ways. For the rest, use these three techniques.

Technique #1: Clone Stamp Tool

Clone Stamp is the Captain Obvious choice for removing heretical hair in Adobe Photoshop. Simply sample the clean area and then brush over the hair and make it go away. However, if you've used this tool before, you'll notice that it has short-comings.
Its main strength is also its main weakness: it copies exactly what you sampled, pixel-by-pixel. This can be a problem with textured backgrounds or variations in color or luminosity. However, with evenly-lit and evenly-colored backgrounds, the Clone Stamp is awesome.

Nasty fly-away hair — Even though I used a very small brush size, re-sampled repeatedly and closely, and used the Lighten blend mode, the Clone Stamp Tool couldn't handle the gradient.

You can further refine your cloning and reduce problematic color/luminosity variations by using different Blend Modes for the brush. I use only three different modes:

Normal
Darken
Lighten

The Normal mode works most of the time, but sometimes it's too exacting and can be a problem with backgrounds that have a slight texture. Using the other two modes can make my changes literally hair-thin.

I use the Darken blend mode to retouch lighter hair that's against a darker background. I use the Lighten blend mode to retouch darker hair against a lighter background. The effect stops once the hair reaches the same luminosity and color value as the sampled area. It will leave the areas that already match untouched, so your corrections are only a couple pixels wide even if your brush size is many times larger.

Technique #2: Healing Brush Tool

The Healing Brush is a more refined version of the Clone Stamp tool. It copies the color, luminosity, and texture from the sampled area over to the target area. It then applies some math and very seamlessly blends the two into something that looks natural.
The Healing Brush is great for removing blemishes, pimples, unwanted facial or body hair, sensor dust, etc. It works better than the cloning technique mainly because it isn't an exact copy, but smoothly blends the target and sample areas with the target's surroundings.
Use this tool for backgrounds that are a little more complex or textured -- wherever the Clone Stamp is failing. You can also use it to clean up mistakes the Clone Stamp has made while preserving the texture. I use it for hair that crosses the face or is on clothing so that I can be rid of it without losing the complexities of the skin or fabric.
Again, you can utilize the Blend Modes to further refine your retouching.
Unfortunately, the blending prowess of the Healing Brush is also a shortcoming. It doesn't do well when your target area is too close a hard line, such as the edge of someone's head. You'll get a blurred bleed and it looks messed up. In this case, the Clone Stamp tool may be better suited, adjust the brush's hardness to match the transition.

Blurred bleed produced by the Healing Brush — You can see what happens when the Healing Brush can do when it gets close to a high-contrast edge. This can happen even if your brush is tiny.

Brush Settings

So, now you know two tools that zap away errant hair and when to use them, but we'll go over some common settings I use that get the job done. Through experiment and experience, I've figured that these tend to produce the best and controllable results.
I use a Wacom tablet for maximum control and flexibility, but this will work with a mouse, too. If you don't own a Wacom and you're doing retouching, then buy a pen tablet. They start at about $80 (USD) and last a long time. Mine is six years old.

Clone Stamp

I usually keep the default shape settings, a circle, and use it at 100% Opacity. I vary the brush's hardness, but rarely go over 80%. In fact, I use this brush at 0%, 20%, 50%, and 80% increments as I've found it covers most of my needs. Of course there are times that I'll use a different hardness setting, but that is case-by-case. And with the pen tablet, I can vary that further with pen pressure.
Like I mentioned earlier, I utilize different Blend Modes when I need to. Appropriately matching these different settings to your situation will result very good cloning and a faster workflow.

Healing Brush

A lot of people would tell you to use this brush with a soft edge. I'm going to tell you to do the opposite. Keep it at 100% Hardness all the time. Additionally, change your brush's shape (Roundness) to a narrow ellipse between 20 and 30%. I also angle it and change the direction, depending on my needs.

Adjusting brush parameters — You can change the angle to adapt to each situation.

What these settings do is help the Healing Brush work better by forcing it to re-sample more often and more randomly than a soft-edged circle. Since the Healing Brush automatically applies blending, you really don't need a soft brush. The results have been very natural as well as a greatly reduced risk of that edge blurring I mentioned earlier.
Finally, keep your brush size only slightly larger than the area you wish to correct, especially with fly-away hair close to the edge of someone's head or if the background changes color or luminosity too greatly.

Technique #3: Surface Blur

While this technique is mainly independent of the other two, it does incorporate the others for maximum efficacy. It is a really quick way to remove nearly all that fly-away hair with a single filter effect with some basic masking. Aside from the processing bottleneck, it is faster than going over each hair with either the Clone Stamp or Healing Brush.
Unlike Gaussian Blur or the other blurs, Surface Blur doesn't blend the edges beyond it's threshold setting. Surface Blur considers something an "edge" when there is a significant change in color and/or contrast. So, things like skin, clothing, and other fine details will be smoothed, but not the edge of someone's face -- or the main mass of hair.

Gaussian Blur and Surface Blur compared side-by-side — Gaussian Blur, left, just blends everything together. Surface Blur, right, keeps edges defined.

Surface Blur is a great way to clean up a hair edge when you have a gradient background -- where the Clone Stamp would struggle. It will do a nice job maintaining gradual tonal changes while keeping hard edges well-defined. Give it a go when you have an image with a graduated background.
Let's get into the steps for using Surface Blur to clean up hair in your images.

Back to the begining again — Here is our sample head. Lots of little stray hair and the Surface Blur technique will do a lot of the work for us. (ISO 200, f/8, 1/160sec, flash comp +1.3)

Step 1: Create a New Layer

Drag the layer onto the "Create New Layer" icon (Cmd+J or Ctrl+J) so that you don't affect any previous retouching you've done. You can convert this new layer into a Smart Object (Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object) to be able to change your settings without having to reapply the filter from scratch. Converting to a Smart Object is optional.

Step 2: Apply the Surface Blur

Go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur in order apply it. You'll see a preview of the effect at its current settings.
The Surface Blur filter has two sliders, Radius and Threshold. The Radius determines the amount/strength of blurring. The Threshold determines the tolerances of what the filter considers to be an "edge." Going too low with the Radius will give you a halo and going too high with the Threshold will make you lose your edges.You'lld to adjust the sliders so that the fly-away hair disappears due to the blurring, but the main body of hair and hard edges remain quite sharp. This will take some experimenting and will vary from image to image. However, I've found that a Radius of 40 pixels and Threshold of 20 pixels gives me great results.

Adjust Radius and Threshold controls for the Surface Blur tool — As you can see, a lot of the stray hair is gone while the main body of hair is intact.

Once you've gotten the settings pretty close, apply it and evaluate the results. A lot of the isolated hair should be gone or mostly gone.

Before and After Surface Blur — After applying Surface Blur, the hairline has been cleaned-up significantly. The stragglers can easily be handled with the Clone Stamp Tool. (230% zoom)

Step 3: Clone Stamp Clean-up

There are times when the Surface Blur gets the job done, but often you'll need to tackle the few that got away. With a soft-edge brush, Clone Stamp those escapees by sampling very close to the target area to avoid noticeable color variations. I keep my brush no higher than 50% hardness.

Clean up with Clone Stamp after the Surface Blur filter — Sampling very close to my target area, I got rid whatever the initial Surface Blur missed. However, I made sure to try to keep it natural-looking. (230% zoom)

Try not to make the hairline too clean because then it will look unnatural. You can do a second round of Surface Blur at lower settings if it could use a little more general refinement.

Step 4: Create a Layer Mask

Now it's time apply the effect only to the outer hairline. Create a Layer Mask on your layer with the Surface Blur by clicking the "Create Layer Mask" icon. Invert the color of the mask from white (visible) to black (invisible) with Cmd+I (Mac) or Ctrl+I (PC). This will hide the effect.

Now, with a hard-edged brush (about 80%) reveal the effect by painting on the mask with white. Limit the revealing by only brushing over the hair that need to go away. You don't need to be very precise because the Surface Blur should maintain the edging of the main body of hair.

Paint on layer mask to reaveal effect — This is what the mask should look like. (100% zoom)

Step 5: Add Noise

Surface Blur usually removes all the noise (grain) in an image. This lack of texture can ruin the effect by being too smooth. We'll need to add noise in a dosage that matches the rest of the image.

Add noise to match retouched area to rest of image — I zoomed in to 330% to show in more detail the differences between that retouched and un-retouched areas. This is difference is visible at 100% and will be more obvious with high-ISO photographs or under-exposed images that have been brightened.

Make sure you're working the image of the Surface Blur layer and not the mask by clicking on the thumbnail of the layer. Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise.

Select image not mask — Make sure the layer's image thumbnail, *not* the layer mask, is highlighted. Otherwise, you'll be adding noise to the layer mask.

In the Add Noise dialogue box, turn on the Gaussian and Monochrome settings. Adjust the slider until the noise pattern and density closely matches the rest of the image. While not entirely necessary, this small detail does an excellent job hiding the retouching you've done.

Turn on Gaussian and Monochrome settings — For this image, I applied 3% Noise. It's not perfect, but is the closest match. At 330% zoom it's really good and when we zoom-out to 100% you won't notice it.

Conclusion

Lots of errant strands of hair before retouching — Before retouching

Final image nice clear hair without fly-aways — After retouching

When you have a great portrait, sometimes fly-away hair can really be a pain. While cloning and healing are great, they do have limitations. Using them in conjunction with the Surface Blur technique can not only improve your retouching results, but also cut-down on the time and tediousness of either technique alone.
With practice, you'll be able to evaluate an image and quickly decide which of these techniques will be most effective in removing fly-away hair

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7 Best Photoshop Layer Tricks

When you’re using layers in Photoshop for photo editing and composting you can speed up the process of working with them if you know these cool layer tricks.

1. Unlock the Background

You will already know the Background of any photo is locked and you can’t do anything much with it until you unlock it. The quickest way to unlock a background layer is from inside the Layers palette. Drag the lock icon to its right and drop it in the Trash and the Background layer will be automatically converted to a regular layer.

2. One click add a Layer

To create a new layer above the current layer click the Add New Layer icon at the foot of the Layer palette.
To add a new layer directly below the current layer Ctrl or Command Click on that icon. Both options add a layer but without displaying the Layer dialog.

3. Merge Everything to One Layer but Keep the Layers too

To merge all the current layers in the document to a single layer and at the same time to keep all the layers intact below it, click the topmost layer of the document and press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E (Command + Option + Shift + E on the Mac). In case you are curious – it’s called Stamp Visible.

4. Select the Content on the Current Layer

To select everything on the current layer Ctrl + Click on the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette.

5. Copy a Layer to Another Document

To copy a layer from one document to another drag the layer from the Layers palette in one document and drop it into the other document. If you hold Shift as you drag the layer will be centered in the middle of the second document.
Layer5

6. Quick Layer Moves

To quickly move a layer up the layer stack press Command + ] and to move it down, press Command + [.

7. Instant Delete a Layer

To instantly delete a layer, click the layer and press Delete.

Bonus Layer tip

To fill a layer or a selection with the foreground color press Alt + Backspace (Option + Delete on the Mac). Use Control + Backspace (Command + Delete on the Mac to fill the layer or selection with the Background color.
So, over to you now… what are your favorite Layer tips and tricks?

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Layer Styles in Photoshop

Effects can be added to individual layers in Photoshop that automatically change as a layer is modified. The combination of effects on any given layer is called its Layer Style. We’ll teach you how to use and make your own layer styles in this tutorial.

What are Layer Styles?

Note: If you’re trying to find out how to install layer styles, please see our tutorial on Installing Layer Styles in Photoshop.
Layer styles are special effects that can be quickly and easily applied to individual layers in Photoshop to drastically change the appearance of something in very little time. They can be preset, customized, or even saved and used for later.
One of the useful properties of Layer Styles are there relationship to the layer contents. Since the style is actually a separate entity that is just linked to the layer, it will continually update itself as a layers contents are edited or moved. Furthermore, the effects can easily be adjusted after applying them, making them non-destructive in nature.

Demonstration of layers with and without Layer Styles applied

Some shapes and text with and without layer styles applied.

Using Layer Style Presets

Photoshop comes packed with a good number of Layer Style Presets, all which are accessible through the Styles Palette (Window > Styles). To apply a Layer Style, select the Layer you’d like to work with in your document from the Layers Palette, and then select the Layer Style which you would like to apply.

Example of a Preset being applied to a layer

A Text Layer Before and After a Layer Style Preset is applied to it.

After applying a Layer Style, the effects in the layer can be seen, adjusted, disabled or reenabled from the Layers Palette. Layers with effects applied to them will have a small round icon with an ‘f‘ in it. To expand or collapse the effects applied to a layer, click the arrow to the right of this icon.
When a layers effects have been expanded, you can quickly disable specific effects within the layer style by clicking the eye icon next to the effect. Just like a layer, these effects can become visible again by clicking the blank area (where the eye would reside) when an effect is disabled.

Making Quick Changes

You can make quick changes to a layers style by double clicking the ‘f‘ icon to pull up the Layer Style Options. From here, you can completely customize your layers style.

Creating your own Effects and Styles

To add your own layer effects, and create your own styles, go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options, or Right Click your Layer, and select Blending Options. This will bring up the Layer Style Options.

A. Style Presets – List of the Style Presets. B. Effects – The various effects that can be used in a layer style. It’s important to note that by clicking on the name of any of the effects will enable that effect, and display the options for the individual effect.
C. Options / Settings – When the name for an effect is checked, it’s options will be shown here. When Blending Options is selected, settings such as Opacity, Fill, and other advanced options will be displayed.
D. Layer Style Preview – A preview of the Layer Style.

Effects (B) can be enabled by checking them, and likewise, disabled by unchecking them. To edit an effect, you need to click the name (rather than checkbox). The effects settings will be displayed in the Options area (C), where they can be easily adjusted. To apply a set of effects and options, simply press OK.

Layer Effects

Styles can be built with the following effects:

Drop Shadow – Creates a shadow behind the layers contents.
Inner Shadow – Creates a shadow on top of the layers contents.
Outer Glow - Creates a glow behind the layers contents. Cannot be distanced like the drop shadow.
Inner Glow – Creates a glow on top of the layers contents. Again, cannot be distanced like the inner shadow.
Bevel and Emboss - Used to create unique highlight and shadow effects on a layers contents.
Satin - Gives the layer contents a satin-like, glossy appearance.
Color Overlay - Fills the layer contents with a solid color.
Gradient Overlay - Fills the layer contents with a gradient.
Pattern Overlay - Fills the layer contents with a pattern.
Stroke - Creates an outline on layer contents using a solid color, gradient, or pattern.

Give it a Try!

Let’s try it out to make sure we’ve got a clear understanding of all this. We’re going to test our abilities by creating a basic layer style for some text. Go ahead and create a new document in Photoshop, and use the Type Tool to add some large, black text Right Click the text layer, and Select Blending Options.
First we’re going to add a Drop Shadow. Check the Drow Shadow Effect, and click on it to bring up it’s options. Set things up as shown in the diagram below:
Add a Drop Shadow

As you’re making adjustments, you should be able to see changes being made in your actual document. Keeping an eye on your document while adding effects will allow you to better determine how to adjust settings.
You should be familiar with most of these sliders and types of settings from our Palettes Tutorial you may have read. The Angle setting may be a new one to you, but it’s very simple to work. You can either enter in a numeric value, or adjust the angle with your mouse by clicking on the wheel. Doing so will change the angle of your shadow.
Now let’s add a Bevel and Emboss. We’re going to create a bevel that is subtle, so that it doesn’t draw too much attention, but at the same time pops our text a bit. Again, mimic the settings shown in the diagram shown below.
Add a Bevel to your Text

Nothing really new here. You may want to experiment as I suggested earlier to have a better understanding of the different settings here, but most of them are pretty self-explanatory.
Now let’s add a Gradient Overlay.
Add a Gradient

By default, the Gradient Overlay will probably use a Foreground to Background gradient, which is not exactly what we are looking for (unless we’ve setup the Foreground and Background Colors in Photoshop specifically for this step). That’s OK though, because we can easily adjust the gradient from here.
$Photoshop\'s Gradient Editor$
Click on the gradient shown in the Gradient Picker (Black fading to White in the above diagram). This will bring up the Gradient Editor. From the Gradient Editor, you may choose a gradient preset, or create a new custom gradient of your own. Towards the bottom of the editor is the current gradient, with Opacity Stops (Determine how opaque the gradient is at a specific point) and Color Stops (Determine what colors are used in the Gradient). We can add, delete, and modify stops by clicking anywhere above or below the gradient, or by clicking on the stops themselves.
We only want to modify the current color stops. Double Click the first color stop, and apply the color #50a2e7, and then apply the color #75cefc to the right most stop. Click OK to Apply the Gradient.
Click OK to apply the layer style you’ve created.

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Install Layer Styles in Photoshop

There are also plenty of sites out there that also offer Photoshop Layer Styles. I wouldn’t consider them nearly as important as Custom Shapes or Brushes (since they are usually replicated with ease), but they can be nice for speeding up workflow and making your life easier.
Make a note of where you save your files. We’ll need to find them in the next part.

How To Install

From Photoshop, find your Styles Palette, and select it. If it’s not visible, go to Window > Styles.
At the top right of the palette, there is an arrow pointing to the right. Click on this arrow to bring up a menu. From this menu, select Load Styles.
Now, simply browse to wherever you saved your styles, and load them. You’ll see them populate the Styles Palette, and can then apply them as you would any other Style preset.
That’s it!

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Photoshop For Beginners: The Power of Layers

This is the third of a series of tutorials thought for Photoshop beginners. I’ll explain in depth those features that can result difficult to understand for a newbie. In the previous two articles I’ve explained how the pen tool works and some useful extracting techniques.
Today I want to go one step backwards, and deal with Photoshop power core: layers. It’s like to ask: how does Photoshop work? The answer is: with layers. Once understood this concept, everything in Photoshop will be more clear. As always, after a brief introduction, I’ll drive you through a series of micro-tutorials to understand better this matter. Let’s start!

How Photoshop works:

A graphics designer who understands layers mechanism in Photoshop is like a soccer player who understand the offside rule. It’s the key. What are layers and why are them so useful? You have to think in this way: every composition realized in Photoshop is the result of several layers combined together. So a layer can be defined as the fundamental Photoshop unit.
This example will show you the meaning of what I’m saying. Let’s create a new document in Photoshop (File>New):

In the bottom right you should have the layers window. In case you don’t see it, go to Window>Layers:

Here you can visualize, select and modify all the layers that compose your final result. As you may have noticed, in this moment we have a single white filled layer. Create a new layer by pressing the appropriate button at the bottom of the layers window. Now you can see a new layer, but nothing has changed in your canvas. This is because Photoshop automatically create blank layers.

Set the foreground color to black by clicking on the foreground color thumbnail to open the color picker and selecting black (#000000).

Now grab the Paint bucket tool (G) and click on the canvas to fill it with black. Let’s analyse the layers window: the blank layer is now black. This is because what we do on the canvas affects only the layer which is selected. We have 2 layers, one black and one white. Since the black one is above, it’s displayed while the white one is hidden (layer hierarchy).

Switch the foreground color to yellow (#f9d904) and use the horizontal type tool (T) to write something. Note that Photoshop has automatically created a new type layer:

The background layer is locked (note the padlock on the right of the layer thumbnail). This means it can’t be modified. To unlock the background layer double click on it an hit OK in the window that appears:

Every time you want to prevent a layer from casual adjustments you can lock it by selecting it from the layers window and pressing the lock button.

You can give a title to each layer. This is a good practice in particular when you work with complex compositions. Simply double-click on the layer title in the layers window to re-name it.

Select the bottom layer (the white one), set the foreground color to orange (#eb6e08), grab the paint bucket tool and click to fill. Apparently nothing has changed but the bottom layer is now filled with orange, as you can notice from the layers window.

Select the black layer. Grab the eraser tool (E) and select a round 300px brush:

Click once in the center of the canvas. What happens? Once erased the center of the black layer, a part of the orange one appears.

This is due to layers hierarchy:

In the layers window move the text layer below the black one:

As you may have imagined, a part of the text is covered, while the area below the spot is preserved (layers hierarchy). Right-click on the layers thumbnail and select Blending options. Here we can add some adjustments to the layer. Select “drop shadow” with the following settings (screenshot). In this way we can add depth to the image:

You can add a soft shadow to the text too. In this way you can feel more the sensation to work with 3 different levels one on the top of the other.

Why are layers so useful?

In this mini-exercise I want to show you the usefulness that derives from a correct use of layers. Create a new document in Photoshop and unlock the background layer as we did in the previous tutorial. Grab the brush tool and paint over the canvas:

What does happen if you want to move the brush effect? You’re obliged to move the entire image (brush+white background):

Let’s go back. Instead of painting directly on the white canvas, create a new layer and paint over it:

Seemingly the result doesn’t change. But this time if we try to move only the brush effect…ta daaaaaaa! We can! Because we affect only the layer that contains brushes. So this is the essence of the speech: layers can give you full control on your works. In particular if properly used they allow you to modify any detail of the composition at any moment (full control!). And this is fundamental when you are working on projects composed by 100-200 layers. Always try to create a new layer for every important modification.

The key is organization

As I’ve previously written, titling each layer is a good practice to don’t get lost among your layers. When the amount of layers grow up consistently, you can set them up into groups. To create a group, select the layers from the layers window and go to Layer>Group layers (or press ctrl+G). Organization is not only a good practice, but something important when you’re dealing with complex projects. For example, tale a look at how I organized the layers of WeGraphics theme layout. Every group contains 10+layers. Do you imagine how the layers windows would look like if I hadn’t use groups???

Hope you’ve understood something useful about how Photoshop works. I’ll work soon on other topic (blending options, masks…) for beginners, so if you have any suggestion, don’t hesitate to use the comments ;-)