"Crazy Hair" Tutorial

So, the tutorial that most of you wanted from me was about creating the crazy hair I use in some of my photos.

If you've no idea what I'm talking about and stumbled upon this randomly, here is an example of one of my photos where I've used it:




Things to note: I'm using Photoshop CS4 so some of the actions I write might not be the same for you but the general "how to" should remain the same.

Ok so lets get started.

The very first thing we do is download ourselves some nice hair brushes. You can find quite a lot by going to google and searching for "free photoshop hair brush". I got mine from deviantart for free. Be sure to check out how the creator of the brushes allows usage.

If you have a file but dont know how to save it to photoshop, you basically drag and drop the file by going: My Computer > C Drive > Program Files > Adobe > Photoshop CS4 > Presets > Brushes

Then on photoshop you can load it by clicking the "brush" icon, then at the top where it shows your selection, brush size etc, there's a little arrow at the top of the drop down bar. You select "load brushes" and it will show you the brush you've just downloaded.

Ok - so lets get to the actual photoshop addition element of it and how to make it look real.

To demonstrate, I'm going to use my X-Ray photo

Here is the picture already editted but without the hair



Now, using the "eyedropper tool", we select the main colour of our hair. This will make sure we're using the right shade.

Create a new empty layer by going to the "create new layer" icon at the bottom right corner of the layers pallette.

Select the hair brush you want and it the size you'd like it to be. You can change size and direction of the brush by selecting the brush then going to the "brushes" panel and selecting "brush tip shape".

Then apply the hair brush to the new layer and go as wild as you'd like.

Erase the parts that overlap with your face, ears etc using a soft eraser brush.

So far, we should be here:



It looks cool, but one problem.. everything else in the photo has a shadow to it's bottom right but the hair does not. So, we will create a shadow for it.

Right click on your "new layer" with the hair and click "duplicate". We now have a second layer of hair exactly the same as the first.

Move it very slightly down and very slightly to the right. Not a lot

We now have our shadow's base. But it just looks like an extension of the rest of the hair we've created so...

By going to blending modes which is located in the top left corner of the layers pallette - automatically set to "normal", we click it to bring down a selection of different blending modes and we select "soft light". This is already looking like a shadow but it's a little strong so we lower the opacity until we get it to look more realistic and more similar to the rest of the shadows in the photo.

and



voila.


side note: if you have light coloured hair or have highlights, then your task is going to be much longer because the only way I know how to do it with light hair is to erase chunks of the hair (making new layers each time you need to use a different colour) and keep changing it's colour using the eyedropper tool over and over again.

Hope this helps! Leave me a comment if you found it useful :)