How to Select Hair in Photoshop

If you are working on a photograph in Photoshop, you may find it necessary to make changes to the hair of someone in the picture. Perhaps a customer wants her hair a different color, or shorter or longer. In any of these cases, you will need to isolate the hair from the rest of the picture so you can work with it. Normally, you would do this using one of the standard selection tools, but hair is different because of all the locks. While the selection is time-consuming, it will give you more professional results.

Instructions

1. Open Photoshop, and then open the image you want to work on.

2. Go to the Toolbar and select the "Pen" tool, as it will give you much finer control than the regular selection tools. Go to the tool properties at the top and make sure it is set to "Create Path," since you don't want to fill it.

3. Click at some point along the edge of the hair. Continue clicking, working your way along the edge of the hair to outline it. You will want to add a lot of points (perhaps as many as a hundred, depending on the hair) for this to be exact. When you return to the first point, click it again to close the outline path.

4. Right-click on the path outline, and select "Make Selection." In the dialog box that pops up, click "OK." And that's it. You are now ready to work on the hair.