Question
How to remove noise in between hair strands
This is a photo of a horse's head with a black background. I've attached a before and during.
Other than masking out the blank areas in between each strand, which I have done and is very time consuming and not completely accurate, is there a better way to clean up the white noise?
I've also played around with levels (lowering the midtones) to remove the noise.
This is going to be a 60"x60" acrylic and the eyes are the main focus so I'd like to get this part as perfect as possible.
Before:

During:
