Both of these pictures may not show much change from the last step,
but there are subtle things going on here.
On both figures, I've used a few small
paintbrushes to paint more variations
in her hair. I've kept layer transparency
preserved, although you don't need to
if you're careful, or want to add more
strands to the building breeze. I will
also use the smear tool with my custom
brushes on occasion. I set the tool to
"normal" and pull the hair, gradually
adding more form. Sometimes I set the
brush to vary size with pressure, sometimes
not. Experiment and finds what works best
for you.
Oh, boy... a lot of changes here. In fact, what you are seeing are
the finished versions of hair in both
pictures. Let's see how I got there,
beginning with the brunette.
I've introduced a major new tool for the last hour or so of my painting.
The dodge tool (O). Set to effect hilights,
I use a larger size at first, followed
by very small brushes. I also use quite
a bit of airbrush, followed by smearing,
and more painting. I constantly switch
back and forth between tools, hitting
"J" for airbrush, "R" for smear, "B"
for brush, and "O" for dodge (or burn).
I'll also keep my hand close to the
CTL key to sample colors for painting,
and of course, the ever-useful CTL-Z
combination to undo. If you need to
go back more in your history, you can
hold down CTL-ALT-Z. Each repeated hold
of those keys moves one more step back
in the history of your image.
After I've painted the major hilights, I stroke with a very small
2-pixel size dodge brush to get some
very small strands lit up. If you're
never sure if what you're doing is going
to work, you can always copy the hair
to a duplicate layer and experiment
for a while. If it works, keep it. If
not, you've always got your older work
on a separate layer. To easily create
a duplicate layer, just drag the layer
in the layer palette down over the "new
layer" icon at the bottom. Instantly,
your new duplicate layer appears above
your old one.
The redhead took a bit more work. I noticed I wasn't happy with how
her hair was near the top. So, on a
new layer, I painted new locks of hair
that blew more straight back. When I
was happy, I hit CTL_E to drop and merge
that layer with the main hair layer.
I used the same tools on the redhead
to dodge and paint as I did on the brunette's.
It may look softer, but that's a good
thing. Something different for us to
look at and in the creation we get more
experience to carry on to our next project.
As I finish up, I'll take a look at the overall "look" of each piece.
If needed, I'll adjust the brightness,
contrast, hue, saturation, or color
balance of the hair. If you compare,
you can see the redhead's hair has changed
quite a bit since the beginning. Try
a few things. Try duplicating the layer
colorizing it, and then setting it to
"multiply" and see what happens. Or
set the layer to "soft light". It doesn't
matter. What you are doing is experimenting,
finding new things, and in the process,
finding out what you can do in Photoshop.
It's a powerful program; I'm still learning.
Let's take a look at a close-up.
These
two samples show in detail how everything
looks in the end. By constantly switching
between different brushes and tools, I'm
able to create the effect of soft, clean
hair blowing in the breeze. Of course,
we could make messy, dirty hair, but that's
another story, and another tutorial. If
you have any comments, you will find an
e-mail link below. I would love to know
if this helped you out.
