I have be trying to isolate a beard texture which is dark & light brown and color it gray and white (make character look older). But I have trouble trying to get the magic wand or the color replacing function to properly select the hair from either the skin of the background of a head texture map. Any ideas on a good way to do this??
Thanks

Without seeing the map itself I can only make some educated guesses as to what might work the best. The Magic Wand is a difficult tool to use when trying to create complex selections. You can use it effectively but it usually means very low sampling rates, pixel level selection and many, many added selections (a lot of Shift clicking). There are masking apps available but in my opinion, while they work, they tend to be more trouble than they're worth or at best, not much better than what you can already do with Photoshop as it is.
A better approach might be to combine methods. Maybe start with a Color Range selection or a channel selection and add or subtract from it various Magic Wand selections or editing it by hand in Quick mask. Another thing to consider is duplicating your image and changing it's mode to LAB. Since it creates a different set of channels (based on different information) it may yield a better channel to start from. Another thing to try might be to use adjustment layers to try and radically change the image enough to separate the hair from the skin for the purpose of being able to extract a better selection/mask from either channels or with Color range selection. You may still end up doing a bit of hand tweaking in Quick Mask but any oft these approaches is bound to get you closer to what you want than trying to grab what you want with the Magic Wand, which as it turns out in many cases, is not all that magical.

Deep

Thanks for the tips
I tried the techniques you suggested its better but it still is difficult. I think because of the range of colors and hues. Wow this ain't easy. Obviously there is no easy way out.

I just purchased a set of bodyhair brushes for PS I may just try to create the beard with them using an union skin technique. Then I can color them any color I want.

Yeah, what you are trying to do is among the more difficult types of masking/selecting. As long as you are considering using brushes to paint in the hair, consider combining methods (yet again). My concern in painting all new hair in with brushes would be that it would look like that's what you did, painted all new hair in. I would try and make as good a selection as possible and alter the colors and then go in afterwards with brushes and just hit the areas that didn't come across so well. There's an old saying used by retouchers which essentially says that the best retouch jobs are those you touch the least (otherwise they tend to look like they were painted over).

Deep

Good suggestion
Well I am stuck again...
I tried painting in hair on a seperate layer using a custom brush using black. I figuring I can recolor the black with the adjustments layer after I am finished..
Well for some reason PS will not change the color if it is black! It will lighten it but the hues ands color balance have absolutely no effect.. As an experiment I put a red stroke next to a black one. I could change the color of the red one with no problem but not the black...
I really don't want to redo the brushes again..
What am I missing?????

GTRDON

The problem is that black is essentially Hue-less. There is no color to change. Same with white. Since shades of gray is what you're after anyway, one thing you could try is the desturation brush. Just desturate (remove color) by painting over the areas you want turned gray. This might be tedious but certainly no more so than creating a selection that grabs the same area. Deep

That's 'desaturation'

Or cmd/ctrl-click the painted layer in the layer palette to load it as a selection, then fil with the desired colour. Or create a new layer above the painted layer, fill it with the desired colour (or use a solid colour effects layer) then opt/alt-click on the boundary between the two layers in the palette to make a clipping group.

You can change black by selecting it, opening image>adjustments>saturation and clicking on the colorize option in the lower right corner. Then drag the lightness slider to the right. You can then change the hue and saturation to your heart's content.