Could somebody help me with Newborn hair removal/skin smoothing?

[katia]

I recently did a newborn shoot, but unfortunately we missed the squishy-newborn window, and his baby acne had kicked in. Also, he is a hairy little boy! He was about 3 weeks old in this shoot, and I am soooooooo thankful we were able to get him in this position.

Anyways, I'm just wondering what technique would be best to smooth this image out?

I'm going to post up the original straight out of camera, and then post a very quick "After" example of what I'm hoping to achieve. I'm *almost* happy with the After example, aside from the hair removal. I've never had to do this in PP.

Links to tutorials, or a step-by-step explanation, PS actions, etc would all be appreciated. I could also email the RAW file if you need to look closer.

ETA: Just realized if you left-click>Open in New Window, you can access the high-res version of the files

[ArmySoldier777]

I hate to be "that guy" that throws this off topic, but I gotta do it. I'm not exactly smooth, but I think that baby may have more body hair than I do.. Somebody somewhere down the line in his life is going to refer to him as the missing link, I can already see it lol.

As far as completely removing all that hair in post... The only thing I could think of is very detailed cloning and healing. You could work in layers and lighten each individual hair to make it blend in a little better, but even then you're looking at some seriously detailed work. In B&W, you could probably hide it a little easier because you wouldn't have to be so delicate in the editing.

Hopefully somebody else will have some better ideas for you. I'd be interested in having to see what they say.

[katia]

Thanks! And yes, I know he is a very hairy little chap! His dad is korean and Momma is Caucasian. From what I understand (not that I have any babies of my own) Sometimes they are born with lots of hair, and it sort of just rubs off with time.

So who knows, he may not be so hairy as an adult!

I sure hope there's an easier way than cloning and healing!

[katia]

Bumping this up, because I really need help!

[katia]

Well, this is what I've got so far.

Thoughts?

[edbayani]

you can do this with combination of the clone tool, dodge and burn and selective blurring.

[dmann]

I would leave the hair. Being a mother and have been around a lot of mothers, I would make my best bet they would want the picture to feature his hairy little body. Unless the mother complained otherwise it's one of the newborn features that melt your heart. Like the wrinkly skin, sketchy fingernails, and alien like form of a newborn baby.

For the acne though I would clone stamp and use the impressionist brush (opacity 2%). Spot healing would be a good choice too.

[Rogern123]

Hi, I had a quick go using PhotoShop Elements 8 and can get good results using the following technique:

Duplicate the image (ctrl-J)
Add Gaussian Blur to the duplicated image - I used 16 pixel radius
Create a new layer between the images
Select the upper (blurred) image and group it with the new blank layer (Ctrl-G)
Select default Black on White palette (D)
Choose a soft brush and select 80percent opacity to start with
In the empty layer paint over the more downy areas with an appropriately sized brush to blend in the blurred image. Be careful not to blur out any areas that have edges that should be preserved, you will need to adjust the size of the brush and the transparency as you go along.

This also works for red marks etc. On the face use a lower opacity as there are more details. Once done, the opacity of the blurred layer can be adjusted to get the best balance.

If you don't have PSE or equivalent, I would be happy to spend some time on this for you if you email the original. rnichol@ipwireless.com