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Give Your Subject's Hair More Life in Photoshop: Volume, Color, and Depth in Three Moves
Video Tutorials

Give Your Subject's Hair More Life in Photoshop: Volume, Color, and Depth in Three Moves

Hair retouching is one of those things that separates a decent retouch from a genuinely polished one. I spent an embarrassing amount of time early in my freelance career trying to make flat, lifeless hair look editorial by throwing contrast sliders at it. It doesn’t work. What actually works is a specific sequence of moves that address volume, color, and depth as separate problems. That’s exactly what Aaron Nace breaks down in this PHLEARN tutorial, and the reason it clicked for me is that he treats each issue with its own dedicated tool rather than hunting for one magic adjustment that does everything.

Steal Colors From Any Photo and Make Your Images Look Like a Fever Dream (In a Good Way)
Video Tutorials

Steal Colors From Any Photo and Make Your Images Look Like a Fever Dream (In a Good Way)

Client work has a way of humbling you. I spent the better part of an afternoon once trying to manually paint a warm, hazy color grade onto a portrait, layer by layer, brush stroke by brush stroke, and the result looked like someone had smeared margarine on the screen. The color was there, technically, but it had no life. No cohesion. What I actually needed was already sitting in another photo on my desktop, and I had no idea I could just… take it.