Step 3: The HAIR

Step 1: A New Me | Step 2: Eyes | Step 3: Hair | Step 4: Ears | Step 5: Mouth | Step 6: Nose

We will use the same process of selecting and dragging that we used on the eyes to get other pieces of our new face into place. For the hair, we will use an extremely useful tool that will make selecting the hair much easier: the Magnetic Lasso Tool. This tool allows us to make a selection by dragging around the outside of an area where a contrast in colors exists. For example, let's say I want to select the hair of the following person...

We could do it with the regular Lasso Tool and then use the Eraser Tool to remove all of the unwanted area, but an easier way is to select the Magnetic Lasso Tool and select just the hair. Notice how the hair is significantly darker then the surrounding area. This contrast creates an excellent line that the Magnetic Lasso Tool can use to create a selection area.

  1. Open your picture in Photopea
  2. Make sure your hair is able to be replaced - it should not sit too far off the top of your head

Take a look at Niel's hair in the image below...

Notice that his hair sits a significant distance off the top of his head. It will be difficult to replace his hair with someone else's hair simply because we are forced to choose someone with equally high hair. There are several ways we can address this issue, so let's take a look at two of them. Remember, the following two directions only apply if you have lots of hair.

  1. Use the Clone Stamp Tool (how the Clone Stamp Tool works is covered in the Ear step) to remove the top of your hair, as I did with Niel below...

    Note that it is now far easier to find someone with hair that will work
  2. Use the Magnetic Lasso Tool described in this Step to select your hair, invert the selection so that you have everything but your hair selected, and copy and paste your face on a new layer, then simply turn off the visibility of the original background layer thus making your current hair 'invisible' (yeah, it is kinda complicated...just do the Clone Stamp thing)

Which of the two above methods you choose to deal with your hair is up to you, but remember that part of your grade depends on your new hair looking natural. Take the time to make it look good.

  1. Open the picture of the person whose hair you wish to use

Note that you do not have to use all of the hair from the new person. If there are specific parts you like (or don't like), you are free to use those areas. Keep in mind that for the Magnetic Lasso Tool to work that there must be a definite contrast between the area you want to select and the area surrounding it (one area needs to be dark while the other is light).

  1. Click the Magnetic Lasso Tool...
  2. Set the Feather amount on the Magnetic Lasso Tool's options bar to 2...
  3. Determine the best place to click to begin your selection - for my image, the best place to start is the point of hair by his left ear...
  4. Click where you want to begin your selection
  5. Slowly (yes, slowly!) move your cursor around the area you want to select - as in the graphic below where we are moving the Magnetic Lasso Tool around the hair - and Photopea will automatically drop selection handles around our area for us...

    I know, cool huh?
  6. Enclose the selection area by either clicking back on the first selection box, or by double-clicking somewhere on the screen - once complete, we will have a selection similar to the one below...

Not bad, but there are few problems. The selections we get with this tool are generally rounded and not exceptionally precise. Notice near the ears that the pointed areas of hair did not get selected, and that there are perhaps segments across the forehead that we might want to add or remove...

We can add to or remove from our current selection by holding down specific keys on the keyboard while we use the Lasso Tool.

  1. Click the Lasso Tool
  2. Hold down the Shift key - notice that the cursor now includes a tiny plus sign with the lasso...

    Draw a selection area around whatever you want to add to the selection - when you release the mouse button and the Shift key that area should now have the dashed line around it
  3. Hold down the Alt key - notice that the cursor now includes a tiny minus sign with the lasso...

    Draw a selection area around whatever you want to remove from the selection - when you release the mouse button and the Alt key that area should no longer have the dashed line around it
  4. Continue to make adjustments in your hair selection until you have a selection that you are more happy with, such as the one below...

    Notice that the accuracy of the outline has been improved, but is still not perfect as it is nearly impossible to get EVERY hair in this scenario

I should probably mention that there are ways to get an almost perfect selection, but those methods are considerably more complicated than what we want to do, so let's go with what we have created so far. If you are interested in creating a more precise selection of hair, look online for directions on making hair selections using Channels.

We now have to get the new hair onto our image.

  1. Press Ctrl+C to copy the hair selection to the clipboard
  2. Return to your head file and press Ctrl+V to paste the new hair - notice that Photopea has created a new layer and placed the hair on it
  3. Rename the new layer containing the hair to Hair
  4. Resize the hair so that it matches the scale of your head
  5. Position the new hair on top of your head

Since all of our pictures were taken with different backgrounds, it is likely that you will may have extra 'stuff' around your head to have to clean up. If you do have areas that you need to get rid of, use the Eraser Tool to fix it.

  1. Use the Eraser Tool to remove any unwanted parts of the hair and to smooth out any hard edges

Keep something important in mind: by setting the Magnetic Lasso Tool's feather to 2 we made sure that the edge of our hair is nice and soft...

If you happen to have any areas that resemble the left image above, simply use the Eraser Tool to soften the edge so that it resembles the right image above.

  1. Save As PSD in your A New Me folder as ANewMe_name.psd

That should do it for creating our new hair. Since we don't have to worry about matching skin tones we don't need to worry about using the Adjustments tools this time around.


Return to Step 2: The EYES

Go to Step 4: The EARS


Step 1: A New Me | Step 2: Eyes | Step 3: Hair | Step 4: Ears | Step 5: Mouth | Step 6: Nose