Adobe Systems Senior

Creative Director
Russell Brown makes
regrowing hair possible
with Photoshop 5.0.
ADVANCED

Getting a little light-headed these days? Want to change your image? You’ve
come to the right place! Experiment with the wonders of Adobe® Photoshop® 5.0
to give yourself a whole new look. Impress your friends and feel good doing it.

DIGITAL HAIR MANIA!

The goal of this project is to Look! Instant hair!
Before
create and apply specialized We achieved the
stunning results you
brushes and layer effects using
see in this image with
Photoshop 5.0. The creation of only one application of
these specialized brushes is a After Adobe Digital Hair. It’s
simple technique, but the actual simple and easy to
sculpting of hair will take some apply and there are no
advanced skills. lasting aftereffects.
Remember, results may
vary on each individual.

Creating Custom Brushes Shortcuts

1. When creating digital hair, Throughout this
document, the letter
it’s a good idea to work with
in parentheses after a
several different sized brushes. tool is the keyboard
A variation of sizes and shapes shortcut for accessing
gives you more control and that tool. “Command/
more realistic results. In this Ctrl” means Command
project, I used two different on the Macintosh and
Ctrl on Windows.
sizes – 64 by 64 pixels and 32 by
“Option/Alt” means
32 pixels. From the File menu Option on the Macintosh
choose New and type in the and Alt on Windows.
size of brush you’d like to
create. A brush can be as big or
as small as you want. However,
the larger the brush, the slower
it will paint to the screen.
2. Enlarge the view of the new Dissolve Brush
file to 300%. Press Command/ The Dissolve brush
creates a random
Ctrl+(+) key as a shortcut for
scattering of pixels. You
displaying images at greater can start with this
magnification. Press D to set technique or instead
the default foreground color to draw the brush using
black. Next select the brush tool the pencil tool.
(B) from the Tool palette.
Choose a soft-edged brush that
comfortably fits in the new
window. Select Dissolve under
Paintbrush Options, and set
Opacity to 4. Finally, center the
appropriate brush in the middle
of the window and click once.

3. Next, clean up the new brush

with the pencil tool (N). Be sure
to check the pencil tool options
to make sure they are set to
Normal and 100% Opacity.
Press X to set foreground color
to white. Remove any dots that
touch each other and give the
brush an even yet somewhat
random shape.

4. From the Filter menu,

choose Filter > Blur > Blur. For
the creation of hair, blur the
brush image once. Blurring the
brush gives it a soft edge. If
you do not blur the brush, the
resulting brush will be very
hard and coarse.

Digital Hair Mania! 2

5. It’s time to turn the Super user hint
Photoshop image that you’ve To move quickly
created into a brush. First, between brushes in the
Brushes palette, press
select the entire image, Com- open ( [ ) or closed ( ] )
mand/Ctrl+A. Next from the bracket to move to the
Brushes palette select Define previous or next brush.
Brush. The brush will be
appended to the existing set of
paintbrushes. If you have the
pencil tool selected you will
not see the new brush until
you select the paintbrush tool.
Don’t worry if you made a
mistake, simply select the
brush and delete it Command/
Ctrl-click.

6. Here’s the final step neces- Experiment

sary to make the brush work
correctly: From the Brushes
palette, double-click on the
brush you just created. The
Brush Options dialog box will
appear. Set Spacing to 1 from
the default setting of 25.
Spacing determines the flow of
paint coming from the brush. If
the value is too high, the brush
strokes will not be continuous
and smooth. Try out different
values for the spacing. It’s
always good to experiment!
Open a new file and
experiment with the
paintbrush and airbrush
tools. If the brush stroke
is gray check the
opacity setting in the
Paintbrush Options.
Note: The Anti-aliased
checkbox only becomes
available if the brush is
less than 32 x 32 pixels
in size. Anti-aliasing
adds a softer quality to
the brushes. Brushes
created with this
option will make a nice
addition to your toolset.

7. Create more brushes! Repeat

the last few steps and continue
to make a variety of brush
shapes and sizes. In general,
you’ll get the best-looking hair
with a rounded and random
scattering of the pixels in your
brush. But be sure to run tests
of your own.

Digital Hair Mania! 3

Painting with Custom Brushes
1. Select an appropriate
subject – perhaps one who is
somewhat less than hirsute.
Create a palette of colors from
the lightest to the darkest values
reflected in your subject’s
existing hair. If the subject has
no hair at all, then create a color
palette of your choice. Four
shades of color seems to work
well for this subject.

2. Define a new hairline for Naming paths

your subject using the pen Be sure to name your
tool. Create a path that en- path that you have
created. Simply double-
closes the area where the hair
click on the Work Path
restoration will take place. to change its name.
The path should bend and
curve into the existing hairline.
Keep in mind, defining a
working space with the pen
tool is not always necessary for
this project. Free-form paint-
ing without using a masked
area can deliver completely
different and intriguing results.

3. Next, we’ll convert the path Feathering

to a feathered selection. The Use just enough
feathering to make
correct feathering will make
the hair blend into
the paint strokes blend into the scalp.
the scalp at the edge of the
selection. From the Paths
palette pop-up menu, choose
Make Selection. In the Make
Selection dialog box, set a
value for Feather Radius. In
this project, I chose a value of 2.
However, this value depends
on the resolution of the image
you’re working on. Run an
experiment to determine the
correct value for your image.

Digital Hair Mania! 4

4. After you’ve transformed the
path into a selection, the path
you started with still remains
visible. Deselect the path by
clicking below the name of the
path in the Paths palette.

Click!

5. When creating hair, you Painting order

should always work on a new Start painting with
the darkest color
layer and not on the back-
from the palette we
ground image directly. Create created earlier. Select
a new layer from the Layers the color with the
menu or Option/Alt click on Eyedropper tool and
the create new layer icon and make it your current
name it appropriately. foreground color.

6. Now the fun starts. Select the

airbrush tool with a Normal
mode setting and 100% pres-
sure. The airbrush seems to
work well for creating hair.
Next, choose one of the larger Here’s an example of
brushes you created earlier. the 64 x 64 pixel brush
Adjust the Fade setting on the used in this image.
Airbrush Options palette to
Special note:
determine the length of your
Do not make the hair
hair. Start with small fade a solid mass near the
amounts and build to larger. hairline. Leave it a little
Slowly lay in the hair with even open and see through.
strokes. Start from the back of
the head and move forward
toward the hair line.

Digital Hair Mania! 5

7. Continue slowly painting The basics
until you have a nice semi- Here’s the basic
technique I used in
opaque base of dark hair.
this project. Start with
Check to make sure that the the largest brush and
feathering of the edge you darkest color to set
chose earlier has a nice blend down a base layer.
into the scalp and that the hair Then slowly move to
is not too dense near the the smallest brush
and the lightest color
hairline. If your first attempt
to create the high-
looks a little bit like a bad hair lights on the hair.
day, then make a new layer
and try it again. Practice
makes perfect.

8. Now, to give the hair more

body and to make it a little bit
more realistic, we’re going to
add a drop shadow. Layer
Effects Drop Shadows are a new
feature only found in 5.0 or
later versions of Adobe
Photoshop. With the hair layer
targeted, choose from the Layer
menu Effects > Drop Shadow as
shown to the right.

9. For this particular image, Super user hint:

I chose the values shown at While the Effects
dialog box is open, you
right. In general, you want to
can adjust the angle
enter values that best duplicate and distance of the
the lighting and color of the shadow directly on
Click!
image you’re working on. your image. Just move
Multiply is often the best mode your cursor over the
choice. Multiply blends the image. Click and hold,
and then move the
shadow with the background
shadow around.
as if they were two transparen-
cies on a light table. Next, click If you have multiple
layers of hair, then
once on the small default black using a common global
color patch in the Effects angle will ensure that
dialog box. This allows you to the angle and distance
tint the shadow. are always the same.

Digital Hair Mania! 6

10. The default shadow color in
Photoshop is black. However, if
you take a close look at real
shadows, they’re seldom black
or a neutral gray. They have
color and take on the character-
istics of the background image.
To obtain a more exact color,
sample the person’s skin tone
by moving the cursor over the
subject’s image. In the Color
Picker, move the section to a
darker shade as shown here.
The color is always updated to
the screen, so check the results.
Then click OK to both dialogs.
Sampling colors
With the Color Picker
dialog box open you
can sample colors with
the eyedropper tool
directly from your
image. Just move the
Original skin color dialog box to the side
and place your cursor
over your image and
click. The sampled color
will appear above the
current color.

11. Your results so far should

look something like this.
Notice how the hair has filled
in and is starting to look a
little bit more realistic.

12. OK, so here’s the secret

technique that gives you perfect
hair: Once you have created a
nicely shaped base image, turn
on Preserve Transparency on
the Layers palette. By doing
this, all additional brush strokes
will be confined to the Digital
Hair layers shape. No matter
how much you try, you will not
be able to paint beyond the
Digital Hair layer’s edges. As
you experiment with painting
hair, you will see how useful
this technique is for controlling
your results.

Digital Hair Mania! 7

Painting Midtones
13. Select a midtone value from
the palette of colors you created
earlier. Using the same large
brush you used before and on
the same hair layer, continue to
add another value layer across
the hair. The goal is to build up
the midtones in the hair and
make sure that some of the
black tones still show through.
Painting Highlights
14. Next, using a smaller
airbrush and same hair layer,
add highlights to the hair.
Adjusting the opacity of the
brushes can help blend the
colors and soften the
highlight colors.
Your final results complete your
digital make-over. Now you’re
ready to head out into the
world with a great new look.
Digital Hair Mania!
Here’s an example of
the 64 x 64 pixel brush
used in this image.
Midtones
Use a large brush and
select a midtone value,
as shown to the left.
Then use the Airbrush
tool to add a second
level of tonal value to
the hair.
Here’s an example of
the 32 by 32 pixel
brush used in this
image.
Highlights
Use a small brush and
select a highlight color,
as shown to the left.
Then use the airbrush
tool to add highlights
to the hair.
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Photoshop are trademarks of
Adobe Systems Incorporated.
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Apple Computer, Inc. registered
in the U.S. and other countries.
Windows is either a registered
trademark or a trademark of
Microsoft in the U.S. and/or
other countries.
©1998 Adobe Systems
Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Special thanks to Daniel Brown
and George Jardine for
assistance with the
development of this tip.
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PS5.0 9/98