Hair Definition

A problem I sometimes see in images from less-experienced pretty girl shooters--a little too regularly I'm afraid--is lack of definition and detail in the hair. Sure, many photographers are pretty good at providing hair highlights (especially when shooting with studio lights) but, often enough, simply setting a hair light isn't enough.

The hair care industry is huge! Hair care products have the highest sale volume of all non-food items in the United States. Add to that all the money spent on cutting and coiffing hair and you're talking about some serious bucks! In America alone, we spend more money on our hair than the Gross National Product of quite a few countries. So, with all the time and money people spend on their hair, you'd think all photographers would realize that a model's hair is a critical component of their images: Possibly, one of *the* most critical!

Here's the two biggest problems I often see: Blondes with overly blown-out hair highlights and dark-haired models with little-to-no definition/detail in their hair.

Obviously, if you're going to provide hair highlights, the amount of light directed at a model's hair should be different depending on her hair color. There's no single, all-purpose, right way to light every model's hair regardless of its color. The blonder the hair, the less light required for optimal highlights. The darker the hair, the more light you'll need. Platinum blondes make it especially difficult to maintain definition as their hair blows out, highlight-wise, so easily.

When processing images, PS's Shadow/Highlight tool can be very helpful in enhancing or restoring definition to a model's hair. If you're not working with this cool tool, you should be. But remember: It's one thing to restore detail in the shadows with this tool, but it's often an exercise in futility when trying to restore detail to blown-out highlights. If there's no detail present, you're not going to suddenly get some with PS's Shadow/Highlight tool. In other words, there's no "fix it in post" solution that's easy to employ after you've completely blown the highlights in an image. Attention to detail and capturing things correctly in production is always your best bet.

Model is Nautica from a shoot last week. MUA Dehlia. Canon 5D w/85mm prime. ISO 100, f/5.6 @ 125. Three lights and a reflector. Shot on a white cyc.