Working on Hair is Tough

Report · Feb 11, 2021

Well, I've been using PhotoShop CS-6 for many, many years, and I had my techniques and favorite brushes for blending and rubbing in hair in a photo when doing cut and pastes that have hair involved, but with my new PhotoShop 2021 I am stimied. Can anyone suggest some brushes that I can use with my "SMUGE TOOL" that I can drag over the image and create hair like I used to be able to do? I need a kick start--where to get them and which ones will work the best. Surely someone out there has the same issues?

Thanks!

JCH

Report · Feb 11, 2021

The Hair & Skin Texture Brushes by Castrochew were my goto brushes for many years.

Skin and Hair Texture Brushes by castrochew on DeviantArt

But the Aaron Blaise brush and texture sets are probably the best you'll find. They are not free, but so cheap they might as well be. He also does some value for money bundles.

ON SALE! Photoshop Brushes & Texture Sets - The Art of Aaron Blaise (creatureartteacher.com)

It's not hard making your own hair brushes though. Try single pixel full black with opacity set to fade for flyaway hair. I usually reduce the layer opacity for best effect. Always use fully hard brushes on their own layers.

A couple of this forum's regular posters assisted Dave Cross at one of his MAX workshops a few years ago, and he told us a story about masking a lady with flyaway hair. Scott Kelby and the other Photoshop Guys could not understand how he'd managed to do such an amazing job. The answer is that he had hand painted fine hair detail to the selected lady. That's something I have done for as long as I can remember, and it makes all the difference as it sounds like you already know.

Good luck