Okay, I read the whole extraction thread, but I need another tip to help me out. I'm looking for a way to get my daughter's whispy, curly hair extracted and still looking...you know...semi-realistic and not all choppy. Anybody have any ideas? It's killing me to zoom in and extract each little whisp, but if I don't, it looks choppy!

I dont use PSP but I deal with the hair issue two ways - firstly I only go for the whisps that have a fair chance at surviving lol - I use the mask and zoom in a lot and draw teh selection rather than using teh edgfinder selection tools, I use a feather to try and get rid of the edges that I dont want and then I use a clone brush (using the hair as teh sample area) to cover those edges so teh whisps are a bit thicker but not as jaggy

HTH

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I love to use adjustment layers to make masks: try the Channel Mixer and monochrome box checked, then crank up the contrast to get the hair much different than the background around it. Use the Magic Wand to select either the hair or the background, then use the freehand tool to select the interior areas that the wand missed. Blink off the adjustment layer visibility and use that selection you created to do what you wanted (extract, make a mask, whatever).

hth, lmk if you need more specificis. Channel Mixer is good, but Levels, Curves, even Hue/Sat can also work. Try several and see which gives you the best contrast/difference between the hair and the background.

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Emma the Pal
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Oooo....couple of those things I never even thought of!!! Thanks so much. Off to try itout!