Tazmanet, the hairdresser idea is a good one, though it has shortcomings, because when a flat hair texture (scan) is applied to a mesh it looks, well, flat, as NikitaCreed says. One of the reason Kozaburo's hair always looks so good is because he paints highlights onto the texture. The trick is getting them in the right place (my current problem) and making them look like hairs instead of something painted. As it is, i actually do paint hairs & use "hairy" brushes, but they seem to be blurring when rendered. Hmm. i use Jaager's excellent free hair color palettes--he's already done the scanning & hard work--as a jumping off point for tones and values. Anyhow... consensus is pointing toward a new transmap, too! No surprise there. Thanks again, everyone!