Retouching Hair Roots

Changing the hair color can do wonders to your looks and it’s quite easy to do it digitally in Photoshop (See Changing Hair Color in Photoshop). However, when the nasty roots start to show, you may need to recolor your hair again to cover them up. The thing is, going to the salon can be a luxury nowadays. So if you want to upload a photo of yourself in Facebook but be able get rid of the ugly roots first, you may do so without having to go to the salon or reapplying hair color. You can just do some photo retouching using Photoshop. Here’s how:

1. Open the photo you want to edit in Photoshop.

2. Duplicate the original layer (CTRL + J).

3. Select the Lasso tool from the Tools palette. Using the Lasso tool, outline a selection around the hair roots.

4. Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color then click OK. This should bring up the Color Picker box. Point the mouse to the hair where color is retained. The mouse pointer would change into an Eye Dropper tool. Click on any part of the hair to sample its retained color.  This would apply the sampled color to the selected hair area. Click OK.

5. In the Layers palette, right click on the layer bearing the hair selection and then select Blending Options. Change the Blend Mode from Normal to Soft Light then click OK.

6. Now the hair roots are covered with the same color as the rest of the hair is.

7. However, there would be visible edges on the hair selection you’ve made. To remove this, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

8. Set the radius to one that removes the edges and blends the colored roots with the rest of the hair then click OK.

9. If you want to lighten the hair color more, duplicate the layer containing the newly colored hair roots (CTRL + J). Decrease the Opacity to about 20%.

10. Save and rename the photo.

Photo Credit: True Friends 2 by white lion