How to Quickly and Effectively Clean Out Body Hair in Photoshop

Posted on July 26th, 2009 under Photo Effect, it has 23 Comments and 26,798 Views so far.

In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to quickly and effectively clean out Body Hair in Photoshop, which you can use for a wide range of occasions in your Photoshop Retouch works. The method itself is really easy (done in 3 steps and I’m sure you will have no problem in acquiring it :)

There are a lot of tutorials out there showing how you can do so by using the Healing Brush Tool. However in my opinion, healing brush tool is only useful when the area you try to heal is reletively small, and it can be a bit difficulty to adjust the source position.

Here I’m going to show you an alternative way via the Smudge Tool and the Blur Tool to tackle the shortcomings of the Healing Brush Tool. Have a try :)

Here is a preview of the before and after effect:

Before

female hand

After

3 effect 2

OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, we will need the following stock image:

Female Hand

Step 1

Load the Hand Image we just downloand into Photoshop and duplicate the background layer once (always a good habit, just in case something goes wrong). The resolution of this image is quite high, and that brings the attention to the hair on the forearm (especially when you zoom in):

1 zoom

So our task here to remove them with the quickest possible method and make it as clean as possible.

Step 2

We need to make a selection around the hand and the arm. The reason we do this because later on when we apply the smudge tool, we only want to apply it on the arm and hand, not anywhere else.

So we can grab the Quick Selection Tool (W key) and make a selection outside and the hand, and hit Ctrl + Shift + I to inverse the selection:

2 selection

Then Grab the Smudge Tool from the Toolbox and apply the following settings:

2 smudge

Increase the brush size to approximately the same as the width of the arm (as shown below):

2 start smu

Left-click and hold, and move the Brush toward the position as shown below:

2 smug end

You will see all the hair magically disappeared! But it doesn’t end here, we still have a bit retouch job to do to make it look better

Step 3

You will see around the Bracelet area, we still have some hair left. To remove them, simply grab the Blur Tool and set its strength to 100%, gently brush arcoss the surface around the bracelet:

3 blur

Also under the palm there is a bit of hair there, we can remove them using the Blur Tool as well:

3 blur 2

Maintain the selection, hit Ctrl + J to make a Layer via Copy and apply following Surface Blur Settings to this layer:

3 surfers blur

Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “Screen” and reduce the opacity of 60%, you will have the following effect:

3 effect

Add a layer mask to this layer as shown below, this will create a better lighting contrast for the hand and make this overall image look better:

3 mask

And here is the effect after apply the mask:

3 effect 2

OK that’s it for this tutorial! Of course the retouch won’t just stop here, there are still plenty of methods you can try out to make the picture even better.

Hope you enjoy it drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

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23 Comments

İbrahim Says:
It’s amazing ! I will try it …

Thank you
Huda Says:
Hi,
Thank you for the tutorial. But I wasn’t too clear on some parts. Specifically, the part where you say Surface Blur, I couldn’t find that on the Photoshop CS3 on Mac. I used a Smart Blur instead, since that seemed to fit the picture you gave. For the step where you add a layer mask, I’m unable to draw anything on the mask. All I can do is erase stuff. Any ideas?

Thanks!
marvin Says:
awesome tutorial, i like it…
tnx!
andymarino Says:
Very Cool. Thanks for posting.
AM
joyoge designers' bookmark Says:
nice tut, thanks for post..
Ricster Says:
Good tut and understandable. Only problem is you turned a guy into a woman.
ephoto Says:
Thanks for an interesting lesson. After skin degradation, not bad to add noise for structure restoration. I on a site have many lessons on a retouch
Carl Says:
Nice tip! thanks for sharing
AlbGraphic Says:
sounds easy and effective ! thanks
How to Business Cards Says:
Awesome thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for.
xea Says:
Very useful tutorial! Thanks very much for sharing!
Behnam Says:
excatly what I need!
tanx alot ;)
simbel Says:
The method is good if you don’t mind the artificial looking result. For complete retouching some technique for adding noise, as ephoto said above, or other “restructuring” of the skin texture would be needed.
sourabh Says:
its very nice bt it need some realistic look