Any advice on removing fly-away hairs from this photo? I'm sure no solution will be particularly easy, but i'm wanting something I can replicate fairly easily on 2-3 photos.
Clone tool + time. Get in tight and do them one by one. Make sure the clone tool has relatively soft edges; especially around her hair (you want to keep)
Old trick: Spray the palm of your hand with hair spray. Lightly rub your palm over the flyaways. I found that learning to work with hair and apply makeup beats the hell out of retouching in PS.
Though I used iWarp (since I'm a GIMPer), Liquify is the way to go. Pushed the hair back and did some selective erase throughs. Some additional cleanup and enhancements too, but decided not to degrunge.
Create duplicate layer, then run filters-->noise-->median and set the pixel level to whatever it takes to make the fliers dissapear. Then run noise--> add noise @ about 1% to replicate standard sensor noise (even present at low ISO, add more for high ISO).
Create a mask for your new layer, and paint over the fliers. Faster than clone by a long shot. Doesn't always work, but its saved me hours in the past.
Thanks Jeremy; wish I could say that I invented this technique, but this has been hashed on other forums (believed this forum too) from talent that I can only come close to shadow. I really think this is the quickest technique that gives the most realistic look of all the techniques that I've personally tried. Still requires some clean up steps, but that isn't hard. Now you will need to do "some photoshopping". lol
