I am new it using photoshop, i have cs2 and i can't seem to make hair look real.I not sure what to do? I look at some of the tutorials online but they don't help.

I'm not too sure, exactly what you're asking... could you explain a little more? Is it that the hair gets massed together, or something?, or is it that the colour, or a gradient isn't coming out right? I'll try to answer anything I can help with... believe me, I know what the tutorials are like, and I sympathise. Lou

Hair can be a difficult and frustrating thing to paint the first few tries, and if you are new to photoshop at all, some of the lingo can be confusing.

First thing, open your picture you want to paint hair on in photoshop. On the top bar, select layers, then new layer (not duplicate). This puts a transparent layer over your picture, and this way, if you mess up, you can delete that layer off and try again, without messing up your original painting.

Rule #2 save often! LOL I too have something i like but forget to save and keep going, mess it up and the undo doesnt go far enough back.

After that, there's a lot of ways to go about it. I can give you the basics and from there, play around until you find a way that works for you.

Use a brush in a size that you can work with, but not too large, and using the "midtone" of the hair color you want (for black, a dark grey, blonde a medium wheat color, red a medium red and so on) and paint the "shape" of the hair, making a base.

Once you have the shape, go to your top bar, filters, blur, and choose gaussian blur. Slide the bar to see the effects, it softens the edge of the "helmet hair" you just created. Once "softened" up, go to layers, create new layer, duplicate layer. (this way as you paint, if you dont like it you delete the duplicate, and still have your base there as you started with).

From there, use a 1 pixel brush, in a color a few shades lighter than the base, and start painting strands. It will take hundreds of strands, keep doing this, in various shades of your color, lighter, darker, and so on over the figure. If at any time it seems choppy, or too "fake" try the filters, blur , gaussian, and silde it just a touch to make it a bit smoother. After smoothing, paint more hair strands.

From there, you can play with different effects, such as using dodge and burn for highlights and shadows with different sized brushes, the eraser to soften or clean up the edges, and the smear function, to pull out ends, or smooth harsh looking strands.

I hope this helps! **forgot to add! If the hair isnt the right color you want, you dont need to repaint it. Use the adjustements on the top bar, and play with hue/saturation to change color, as well as darken it up, lighten it or change color!

Message edited on: 11/11/2005 13:38

On the side, one other thing you can do, is make use of variations... it can give you quite an array of possibilities without having to commit to anything. Sometimes it can get frustrating, but if you take a break, and "fiddle" with a copy of what you're working on.... just.."What'll this do to it?" type stuff, you can sometimes find that you can do more than you realised. Keep at it. Lou.