Post Processing on Hair

[gtchickadee]

One of the things I have the hardest time with in my postprocessing is making edits around hair. Does anyone have any tips on how to edit the background around a persons head without making it obvious that the photograph has been edited?

For example, my mom took this picture of my cousin's and I at my cousin's wedding. The photographer was on the other side of the reception at the time, so we don't have a more "professional" picture, but this is a pose we repeat every few years and would like to give to my grandma for Christmas. However, I find the wall molding behind my cousin's head distracting. My attempts at processing thus far successfully create a seamless wall, but it is always obvious where I have processed around the hair. Anyone have any suggestions?

Feel free to take this image and edit it!

Thanks,
Stephanie

[Trader]

Here is what I did with it:

In Photoshop, I blew the image up by 700%. That way you can actually work with the pixels. Sample the wall color near her head. Set the brush size to 10 and flow to 4% - yes, only 4% and brush in the color near her head. Sample the surrounding area often to keep the color the same. Move the brush up and expand the size of the bursh as you get farther away. Once that is about half way done, change to around 350% and finish. After that, change to 160% (that happened to be "Fit to Screen") and apply color to even out any streaks. Hope that helps.