Adding hair

[Skipper]

I really need suggestions on how to add hair to this man's head. He would like me to get rid of this balding spot. Believe it or not I've spent hours on this with no success -- just a big mess each time. I have a feeling this should be relatively simple but I guess not for me. I tried low opacity cloning and tried cutting out a section and plopping it on here and erasing with low opacity eraser (thanks LouR). But no go. That looks like I plopped a low opacity toupee on his head. I tried making a mask (after reading drh681's tutorial link) but holy cow that was a total failure -- you can't even see a mask for heaven's sake, how can you work on it?

Thanks.

[Skipper]

Ha ha, well what's funny is that everyone he knows will know he doesn't really look like that so not sure why he wants to cover balding area. But he does......

Yes that looks a lot better thanks. What did you do? I think I'll have to go even further though. I was going to bite the bullet and try to read up on masks instead of wasteing hours with trial and error. Do you think a mask would help..... that is if I can figure them out?

[LouR]

Burning tool on midtone does it usually. While you can see scalp, there's normally enough fine hairs that will burn and blend in without much trouble. You might have to adjust with the dodge tool. MrC's isn't bad but hair doesn't normally go in a basket weave pattern. Burning and dodging keeps the natural hair pattern.

[Skipper]

I would not have thought of the burning tool. Thanks. I will try that. Thought for sure it would be a clone type action. Or something re layers.

[Skipper]

Thanks LouR. I was on iPad when I saw your post and did not realize you'd posted an edited photo. Thank you. This looks great. Nice job. This was just accomplished with burning tool? I am surprised you got all that hair just with burning.

[LouR]

Thanks LouR. I was on iPad when I saw your post and did not realize you'd posted an edited photo. Thank you. This looks great. Nice job. This was just accomplished with burning tool? I am surprised you got all that hair just with burning.

Yep, just burning, first with midtone, then highlight and then I dodged that dark spot under the bald spot to keep the color even.

[Skipper]

Thanks LouR, I am trying that now. It's a pain when his head gets red spots because I guess I'm burning the scalp too a bit. Also I am impressed that you got the grayer part on right to look brownish, for me it's just burning gray and getting grayer. But I think I'm getting somewhere. What bugs me is that the retouched sections are so soft, blurry, not distinct strands of hair. I also have that problem with cloning, you sample a hair section and go to clone and it's way softer and that of course makes it look fake. Sigh. Thanks for your help.

[Skipper]

Does this look fake? Thanks.

[LouR]

I'm not sure where the part came from, but it looks fine. True, when burning, you have to do exactly and only what you want darkened and you should have the brush at about 20-30% opacity. Always better to go over a section more than once for the right look than go overboard and have to start over.

[Skipper]

Ha ha yes I guess I restyled his hair and gave him a part. Well, I can soften or eliminate that. I must have wanted some definition or structure....

Thanks LouR.