Ok, I'm having the damnedest time. I paint my hair on while my image is big (about 2500 x 2500 or 3000 x 3000) but everytime I shrink it down for the web I of course lose the detail. So should I do 2 versions? Do the majority of those who paint hair on do so on the web version?

Hmm, just do it like I do. Wait till bald comes into vogue. ;)

Disclaimer: I suck at postwork. Period.

try sharpening your image after shrinking. i do it in photoshop with "unsharp mask".

aleks, I always sharpen my images, it's part of my postwork (sometimes I use "edge enhance").. This last time I even tried sharpening the layer the hair was on before merging...

This is prior to shrinking (and a few other light adjustments)

This is after shrinking it down, I have gotten the lighting effects by duplicating layers and adjusting - and then a few sharpening and edge enhancing effects added (which I make semi-transparant so tehy won't be overwhelming)... So maybe I should simply paint it on smaller? But then I'd have to do the hair painting in images 2x's....

Hi Lady What i do is after i shrink and sharpen i then do a hit and miss touch up for the hair to add some of the detail back. dont go to over board or you lose the look of the oridge pic.

Give it more depth and detail by using more shadow and highlights (photoshop tools; burn and dodge). I mean, on a real picture that size the details of hair becomes less also. Just the disadvantage of smaller images... same as skin. On a large render you will see all the tiny details and if you shrink it down those details will be lost. If you paint hair on a smaller image the hair becomes too thick and will look more like rope to be honest. Really, using darker parts for shadow and lighter for highlights will make a huge difference. When strains of hair fall over another part of the hair it will create a shadow, no matter what color hair you paint. Hope that will help you a bit...

Thank you for your comments - I will fiddle some more with it, I do use the the dodge and burn tools, but maybe I'm being overly careful?

Assuming your hair is painted on a separate layer than the rest of the image, duplicating it and trying the different layer modes can help ... multiply or overlay, depending on what effect your looking for, playing with the opacity of that layer, and also playing with the contrast can help. And I also tend to "touchup" with the scaled down version, placing more well-defined strands where they've been lost. The KPT filters I have include a cool effect called "equalize" that also includes a bounded sharpen and bounded contrast ... I use that sometimes to sharpen and adjust the contrast of image elements in lieu of using PS filters, they seem to do it much better. Rhi

LSM...I am by far NO expert...and this isn't people-hair, but kinda the same concept...? Heres a pic I did...small, I think it shows pretty good detail on the hair...but this is done with the tiny brush in PS...no special ones. The tut: http://www.visiongraphics3d.com/lion.html The Bigger Pic: http://www.visiongraphics3d.com/pic50.html

Wow Jackie, that is one amazing looking mane on the lion. For sure I am going to try your tutorial. It looks great.

Sharpen first, (oversharpen till it gets the ugly hot spots) THEN shrink. You keep detail, and lose the speckles you'd get by sharpening afterwards.

Cryptopooka I'll try that for sure as well. I've been using the "special" brushes lately - but I honestly prefer to work strand by strand, but hate putting that time into it when it loses quality. Jackie I will definitely check out the tut, that mane is fabulous.

Sharpen first is the trick I usually use and it seems to keep most of the detail -- sometimes, too much, and I have to go back and soften, or remove a sharpen or two.