Hair can sometimes feel like the bane of a retoucher’s existence, due to the visual complexity of hair and the various techniques you need to know to handle it correctly.
If you need to remove a subject from their background, or are doing composite work, hair is very likely to be the aspect that requires the most time to edit properly. However, it can make a tremendous difference on the final product when done right.
The left image was originally photographed on a teal background, which was changed to a skin-tone shade using this technique.
In the following video tutorial by PiXimperfect, you will learn how to handle the fringing that occurs on the edges of hair, where the color of the background seeps in. With the various textures, values, and light-wrapping nature that hair has, it rarely ever provides us with a clean edge for easy removal.
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You will learn how to select your subject using the Color Range feature along with a Layer Mask. Where this method is particularly clever, is the use of a Clipping Mask to ensure that when you are correcting the color fringing, that you are not painting on the background itself, and your actions are limited to just the hair in your selection.
By the end of this video, you will come out of it able to tackle one of the most challenging aspects of hair retouching with confidence.
Source: PiXimperfect | Featured Image – Photo: Kendra Paige | Model: Bella Davison @ Elite Miami | Beauty: Bri Soffa | Hair: Micah Cook | Styling: Inna Goodman | Assistant: Monica C Baker | Retouching: Helen Voronych
