One day I'm going to put together a list of the worst problems photographers and photo retouchers have to deal with. It's going to be a top, and I can see one of the highest positions already: removing stray hairs.
A few years ago I was putting together a fashion portfolio. I would have a fashion shoot scheduled each week with a pretty model and I ultimately ended up building a decent body of work. I like to shoot outdoors a lot and studio conditions with an even background don't really appeal to me. Of course, that was something I had to pay for. When you shoot outdoors, you're inevitably going to experience the effects of wind, and while sometimes it can be something you want, I assure you that most of the times those effects will be a lot of stray hairs that need to be cleaned upon post processing.
(Success Tip:Take better portraits with this simple deck of cards)
Anyone who's ever tried it knows the horror of it. If you're just starting out with Photoshop, removing every single one of those rebel strings of hair can feel like a punishment for a serious crime. On top of that, you'll most likely end up with amateur looking results that have the obvious mark of intervention on them.
So what is there to do? Photographing only perfect hair styles with uniform shapes is kind of unlikely if you want to go into people photography. Fortunately, there are easier ways of dealing with this problem. You no longer have to take each hair individually and work like a slave, most likely for a lot less than the work is actually worth.
Here is a fast, practical solution for dealing with one of the toughest challenges in retouching, in a video tutorial made by Michael Woloszynowicz.
Learn more about retouching from these recommended books:
- The Photoshop Workbook: Professional Retouching and Compositing Tips, Tricks and Techniques
- Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers Using Photoshop
- Digital Photo Retouching: Beauty, Fashion and Portrait photography