Motordrive Photography wrote:
there is nothing super secret about hair retouching, just lots of practice.
I have the Gry Garness DVD, (which is now subscrption only, but some
individual tutorials can be steamed at low cost)

I also think Natalia Taffarel has some on her DVD, I don't see any
on YouTube though.

Regarding hair retouching, youtube has nothing .  I have watched Natala's.  Wish she could do a master hair retouching course.

TMA Photo and Retouch wrote:
Hair is tough.  Especially cutting out and extracting hair edges... and smoothing out hair...and patching hair, and replacing hair.  It takes a LONG time to do hair work usually.  Not many want to do hair work because it takes a long time and the success rate is sometimes low.

In my work I have cutouts of hair strands, sections of hair in different positions, curls cutout, strand edges and pallets of hair colors.  These parts of hair retouching are made from libraries of images, cutouts, snipets and pieces and parts of hair that can be cut into problem spots.  These libraries are developed over time and are used and reused.

It may be that to teach hair retouching in a tutorial ...that the hair libraries would also have to be exposed and sold as well... because the retoucher may have favorite hair strands and colors he uses over and over again to create or fix things.   Without the use of these custom hair strands and snipets and cutouts... many would not be able to produce good results with hair.  Its not only the techniques that would have to be taught...but the very unique and maybe even proprietary bits and pieces of hair in their libraries would have to be included.   SO...It may be that some are uncomfortable doing hair technique tutorials... because to do them...they would have to also give you equal access to  their very unique and sometimes very messy looking libraries.

For example:  These days when I do a photo shoot...I have many models spin around in a rotating chair and I will shoot  hair parts... so if I need some samples to use elsewhere in their own images...I will have some perfect cut-ins available.  I might also be able to use some parts of one models hair to fix problems on another model with just a little bit of re-work.

There are a few tutorials about using screen or multiply or lighten or darken brush modes...together with the clone stamp tool to eliminate fly aways and cross overs...Ive seen some of those which DO work well...but like you...I also havent seen many comprehensive hair tutorials either.  Im still always looking for things I havent seen yet on hair retouching.

This may be a bit delicate...but I have seen that many russian and ukranian  retouchers seem to have nice looks on skin and especially solid falls of hair where every strand is in place.  They either hand paint in the strands or ive recently tried 3D computer programs to generate computer created hair...and have used some of that output to blend in some hair areas. 

Also, for me... just as an aside comment on hair work on this thread... the only program ive found for myself that is able to cut out hair strand by strand without any halos, or matting, or distortions is Vertus Fluid Mask.  Its a tricky program to use sometimes with a keep brush, a delete brush and a blending brush to cut out hair strands...but if I shoot the original correctly...I can sometimes cut out each and every single individual strand cleanly and clearly.  That helps out alot with my own hair work.  I agree with the OP...where are all the hair tutorials?  Its almost like you have to roll your own in this subject area.

We will all have to keep our eyes open!!

Im also just wondering.. How Russians and Ukrainian retouchers do the perfect hair retouchings?  As you said their skin retouching also perfect.   I think they have superb tutorials!

Phoenix Fate Boudoir wrote:
I rather like this one, actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg_88KX21BU

I have watched this .  Thanks!

Hemali Kapilaratne wrote:
Im also just wondering.. How Russians and Ukrainian retouchers do the perfect hair retouchings?  As you said their skin retouching also perfect.   I think they have superb tutorials!

Just color hair where you want it and put a texture over. Any manga hair drawing tutorial would help.

Something like that.

http://kateignatenko.com/blog/tutorial/ … p-by-step/

Gry Garness does similar way.

Light retoucher wrote:
There is also this: http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorial … 135-2.html

You can register to linda .com and then unregister and you will get about 8 days for free on linda, make shore to right down what you have learned

Good luck

Thank you.  Will check it out!

Tulack wrote:
Just color hair where you want it and put a texture over. Any manga hair drawing tutorial would help.

Something like that.

http://kateignatenko.com/blog/tutorial/ … p-by-step/

Gry Garness does similar way.

Thank you.  This will help all of us to learn something on hair retouching.

TMA Photo and Retouch wrote:
....
This may be a bit delicate...but I have seen that many russian and ukranian  retouchers seem to have nice looks on skin and especially solid falls of hair where every strand is in place. ....

hmmm....

You've noticed that too?  Maybe they teach it over there, but I don't see that much hair re-work in the USA.

Example:  https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/30684712

She used to have some rollover "Before & Afters" on her site, but it appears down now.

Phoenix Fate Boudoir wrote:
I rather like this one, actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg_88KX21BU

This was excellent!!  and pretty much the process I use occasionally when working for stylists.
Google "High rez hair brushes for photoshop" there is a ton of them on deviant art. They'll make quick work out of background swaps. It's still very, very time consuming!!

DaveDavis wrote:

This was excellent!!  and pretty much the process I use occasionally when working for stylists.
Google "High rez hair brushes for photoshop" there is a ton of them on deviant art. They'll make quick work out of background swaps. It's still very, very time consuming!!

Thank you!  Will check it out.

Phoenix Fate Boudoir wrote:
I rather like this one, actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg_88KX21BU

I was gonna post that one lol, it's really good xx

TMA Photo and Retouch wrote:
Some of the reason I dont think I find many hair retouch tutorials...is that hair requires a lot of elements to be retouched well.  Sometimes you need to do color matching, blending, repairing edges, overlaying curls, cutting in, masking, transforming, and extractions all in the same job sometimes.  These are a lot of various skills to have under control... all at one time!    Its not easy to do a tutorial with that many subjects in it all at once.

Ive seen several really nice tutorials on hiding crossovers and flyaways and shaping that are really great here...especially the ones mentioned above.  Some elements of retouching involve just retouching within the image itself and thats great.  If you can repair the problem with traditional Photoshop methods or techniques it makes things easier. 

But, there are other elements of hair retouching that require external and extra "parts and edges and curls" to be added in to fix it up!  These elements are not part of the original hair... or the original image many times.  These "added in parts" have to come from other images you already have.  Sometimes you have a hair cutout... and it has a hard rough ugly edge to it... so you need some nice "edge strands" to be placed around the hard edges... and blended in... so the scraggly edge now looks nice and natural and real again.  It would be nice if you had a library of hair edges, and curls, and whole other sections of hair parts...so you could use those elements to fix your present retouching problems.  Some problems cant be fixed easily with just Photoshop alone.

So, that's my point here...some people have "custom libraries" that they have created over time... to help them to fix up their hair retouch problems.  They have 20 different images of curls, and bangs, and hair strands and hair textures of different colors and types.  So that answers maybe why the original poster cant find a lot of good hair tutorials on line easily...because... some of the retouching requires special hair repair parts that no-one else has access to. 

Every session I do lately with a model also includes a few extra shots I call "retouch parts"... They are closeups of hair, or bangs, or nice curls, cheek pores, eye makeup etc.  These closeups now give me a nice collection of "extra parts" that I can use to maybe repair a retouch problem in the future.  Having just the right kind of curl, or a shot of smooth straight hair that can be transformed, or some nice edge hair strands... can really make a significant difference in what you can repair well. 

Here is visual look at some of the " Kind of Hair Parts"  I try to collect whenever I can.  These kind of "Cut in Parts" can be used to help you fix up your own retouch images. 

This might give you an idea of how YOU could start to begin to create your own library of hair parts.  You may already have many hair elements in previous images you have already shot.   Sometimes a nice curl that Model Nancy had last week...is just the same kind of curl you need today... to cover up Brendas ear that is showing through her hair!!!  Nice Hair Patch!!  Glad I had some!!  Need a part?  Got it!  Blending it in... right now.  Perfect match!  Collect your Hair Repair Parts today.
 

Always giving worthy tips.  Thanks TMA!