This is where your answers will be posted, so check back here after a guru has replied to your pm.
(Please dont post questions in here or comments lets keep it free for the answers so its easy for all to surf through, thanks)

I thought all of your chops were the result of alcohol

Nevertheless, should you decide to sober up I would suggest starting the chopping day with gallons, liters if you prefer, of piping hot, sugar-laced coffee. Be sure you have easy access to a sanitary and orderly bathroom, one with a weeks supply of toilet paper. A disorganized, filthy, feces covered toiled is not conducive to chopping. Once this is out of the way you will want to plunk yourself down in front of a computer. Take a big gulp of coffee!

GURU TIP #1: It may help to keep the piping hot joe in your favorite beer mug so that the detox process will proceed with minimal interruption upon your chopping day.

As every decent chopper will attest one cannot chop their best work on a PC so I highly recommend purchasing an Apple computer because damn near anything created on a PC is pure shit. And if it is great, well not only is the chopper a great artist they are a great navigator of bug-infested software and cheap components.

Get the latest and best Apple computer, one with all the extras because knowing you have this in your chopping arsenal will without a doubt infuse you with overwhelming confidence to chop with precision and fury, like a sushi chef on crack. And members of all sexes will perform nearly any sex act you can dream up in lieu of some computing time with your shiny, sexed-up, chopping tool.

Take a big gulp of coffee!

Did I mention the need to purchase a Wacom tablet? This is probably the single most important accessory you could spend the family money on. To chop with a mouse is like trying to carve the family turkey with a spoon. Do it without hesitation. Live on noodles and water if you must, but do it.

GURU TIP #2: Unless you live a pathetic life and don't go anywere, you will want a portable drawing tablet, one that has a large enough drawing area, yet it doesn't wear you out lugging it from bar to bar or coffee shop to sex shop. I highly recommennd buying a 6"x8" tablet.

Break time! Now visit PSC and spend some time in the chat room or jump into one of the forums and post some jibberish trash talk that will intimidate your fellow choppers, unsettling them, causing them to question their chopping abilities, thus guaranteeing your chops infamy and a slave-like devotion. Be prepared for an onslaught of "..."

Stop! Take a big gulp of coffee! Take another one! You are the MAN!

Now get down on your knees and pray for a miracle, or draw one.

nice

manic d's hair problems

Hello Manic d

I suggest that you first try the tutorial about hair masking in the tutorial section.Although it was written by ledirlo it's still a pretty good one.

I personally have two options for managing my hair problems:

1: use the clone stamp with the grass brush assigned to it, with a little size and angle variation, take some hair as the source and stamp over the edges to recreate hair tips that look natural, you can as well blur them as you chose to apply the clone on a separate layer.

2: use another program such as Maya Paint Fx that has great fur and hair brushes.

Okay great I am smacking myself for not realizing Led had a tut on it. Thanks for the reply back.

Hey Manic,
This is Rey.
I don't think anyone is mad. I think some people are just trying to be silly.
The above answer is a good one. This may help too.
There are many techniques for dealing with hair. Each image is different. A lot depends on the background. If the background is a similar color and darkness as the hair, you are going to have a tough time. Sometimes redrawing hair is the only answer. (or stealing hair from somewhere else and matching the color) If the hair is different enough from the background here is a method you can use. I always use the pen tool to make a selection around the entire body, everything bet the hair. When I get to the hair I just make a close circle around it leaving out as much of the background as possible. I make a selection with this path and put the cutout image on it's own layer. Then I add a layer under it and fill it with a color that is very different from the hair. Now draw a loose lasso selection around the outside of the persons hair. Include the ends of the hair and go to approx where the skull starts. Now use the color range selection tool and select and select the stuff around the hair that you don't want and feather the selection 1 pixel and delete it. You may want to hit delete twice. There may be some outside stuff left that you can just erase. There are also ways of creating masks of the hair using the different channels. Sometimes you can see the shape of the hair better in other channels. There are many methods and many different situations. Maybe Manic, you can post an example image and we could focus on that one. Try this too.
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/blrbps_5agirl.htm
Also for drawing some hair edges to replace hair that you could not remove, try this guys brushes. Some are pretty good. Play with them and then you will learn to create your own.
http://graphicssoft.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&cdn=compute&tm=47&f=10&su=p284.8.150.ip_&tt=14&bt=1&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.creativemac.com/2003/08_aug/features/download43030828.htm
Some times to replace hair that I had to cut off I will use the free style pen tool and quickly draw some strands and then with a 1 or 2 pixel brush set to fade I will select the hair color and stroke the paths that I just made. I will come back to this issue and try to explain everything that I just said with pics. It won't be until tomorrow or later but I will get to it. I did these with the free hand pen tool.
http://photoshopcontest.com/images/large/nwj0owzubfsh8jol5xy57b7lyjgry96a6t9t.jpg

I will return. I promise.

Linda Bergkvist has a great tutorial on how to create hair.

Hey there Manic, its Blue_lurker here. Im not one of the Gurus, more like a goffa, but I always had trouble masking things like hair and feathers and small leavy branches. I stumbled on this tut by Colin Smith and with some tweeking and practice it works 8 times out of 10.
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/masking/masking.htm

Takes a little playing on your behalf but it works quit well

I so appreciate all of the wonderful help on this today. Thanks to all the gurus who took the time to answer!

Hello, Tarmac, vokaris here.
I downloaded your files and had a look. The obvious answer would be to clean up the dark outlines in the original NASA source photo before copying the cloud to your composite.

If you're stuck with what you have in your layered file:


Set the cloud layer to Normal mode and set the the healing brush to NOT use all layers. Turn the layer back to Pin Light when you're done with the cleanup. It should work OK:


You may be running into strange unwanted artifacts because you're trying to use the healing brush in an overlay mode (Pin Light) with the "Use All Layers" option set to ON.

Here is a hair sample to experiment with. Maybe some of the gurus would like to give this one a try and share their method.
Try to remove the girl and put here in another room.

Sometimes the hardest problems have the simplest solutions. Vokaris, thank you so very much for showing me what was starring me in the face. I am now absolutely sure it was Artifacts in the Pin Light layer mode that was messing me up while I was cloning and healing the cloud layer. Also not unchecking 'Use All Layers' was my other mistake. My problem just needed a fresh set of experienced eyes to find the simplest solution. Thank you again Volkaris, and thanks als to Blue for setting this new PSC resource up for us .. !

Hi. It's me Rey. I'm back.
This is a quickie example of redrawing hair.
First I picked a pain in the ass image.

The I cut a path around the body and cut most of the impossible threads out until I got this.

Then using the freehand pen tool I start quickly drawing strands of hair.

Then create a 1 or 2 pixel brush with these settings.
Pick a color from the area of the hair next to where you are working.

\
Then go to your path palette and go to Stroke path

Check off simulate pressure and make sure the brush tool is chosen.
You'll get something like this.

Repeat this process all around the head changing up the colors. Add another background. Erase parts of the hair that you do not need with a soft eraser. You should get something like this.

When doing this. Be loose while drawing the strands. make them look random. Have fun. Sometimes erasing some of them with the eraser set to 25% gives a nice look.
Remember, this was a quickie so take your time, make cleaner selections than I did. Pick and chose where your strands go with care. Don't rush it or it won't look natural. Mines not quite there yet.

Your supposed to be looking at her hair. That's the area way above the chest.