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I'm kicking this off a bit early as it is (almost) Friday here, and I am going to be a bit full on tomorrow (my new computer is _finally_ finished).
A different approach this time, and I have done some of the work for you. Instead of a full image, I'm providing a cutout with transparency, and you have to decide how to use it. The sailor and his girl are a statue at San Diego I took at MAX in 2016.
The PDF is about 2500 pixels on the long side. Previous SFTW threads got a bit slow to load by the time it was filled with images, so we should maybe keep the final uploads to say 1200 pixels on the long side. Have fun
[EDIT] I am not sure if you will be able to open this as a layered document with CS6 and older versions. If you have that problem, then you will still be able to open it as a PDF with a white background, so an easy selection.
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As we said we'd do the occasional how it was done post. I used one of my favourite brush sets that being Skin & Hair Texture Brushes by Castrochew. And specifically the Pressure Affects Size preset
With all hair, you start with the darker tones and build up on different layers going to ever lighter tones. You can dip back to a darker tone now and again, but you'll need to add some lighter strokes to finish. This gives the hair depth, and highlights
With human hair I tend to block it out and fill a background selection completely with the darkest tone. Blur that to soften the edges and make nothing extends beyond any flyaway hairs. Build up as above mostly using the same brush — I rarely find the non-tapering preset useful. Then add some flyaway hairs using a fully hard brush with size set to Fade.
These are 4, 2 and 1 pixel with spacing at 5% (that's how Photoshop works out the Fade distance). You'll sometimes find that even one pixel is too much, in which case just reduce the layer opacity. You obviously need the fine hairs on their own layer.
This is also how you do eye lashes, and even eye brows can (sometimes) need building up a hair at a time. When Chuck, Mike Hoffman, and I assisted Dave Cross for his Select & Mask workshop at MAX 2016, he told a story about Scott Kelby and the other 'Photoshop Guys' being amazed at the quality of a mask he had done with flyaway hair. He smiled and told them that he'd painted in the hair over the mask edges using the paint brush. There are soooooooooooooooooo many ways to do stuff with Photoshop.
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Trevor.Dennis wrote
Jodi_Frye wrote
Thanks so much Terri for your wonderful words. Much appreciated
You can stop that mylarky RIGHT away!
OK It's Friday here, but...
What ???
Crazy awesome post !!! Love that hair !!
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lovely work Trevor, very funny indeed
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Thanks Terri and Jodi. No one has mentioned that the hand holding the Terri-bear is a right hand. People are too polite to be picky perhaps. I'm keeping an eye open for SFTW5. Dave has some great ideas lined up, and I am itching to have a go at them I'm still on the old computer [1], but I have worked out that if I keep the image sizes down, I can use Select and Mask.
[1] They got as far as trying to start it, and found that either one or both of the motherboard and CPU are toast. I'm now hoping to take delivery while the components are still current.
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Trevor.Dennis wrote
No one has mentioned that the hand holding the Terri-bear is a right hand. People are too polite to be picky perhaps.
Oh, it's Terri! I was trying to place the bear face—she may want a still image of that one! Good luck with your computer woes, Trevor.
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Trevor.Dennis wrote
... No one has mentioned that the hand holding the Terri-bear is a right hand.
I hadn't notice the hand Trevor. But now that you've pointed it out .....
Trevor.Dennis wrote
..... I'm keeping an eye open for SFTW5.
STFW5 is up an running now :
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2446475
Dave
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Trevor I didn't notice the hand at all as I was much too focused on the Terri Bear. The wrong hand side now has reminded me of an episode on that tattoo show ... as of this moment I can't think of the name of it but it is about artists competing to be the best tattoo artist. A piece one of the members did was a pin up girl sitting on the ground and she had two left feet. There is no Control+Z on skin ink and it was pretty obvious. And right there on upper right arm... a big one. With yours the Terri Bear takes center stage and the hand seems invisible to those technicalities. Doesn't matter. The brain assumes it's ok
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Fun brushes guys ! Got to get on it and create something this week!
Cheers