How to Create Facial Hair in Photoshop

▶ Download the Photoshop brush for this tutorial (free with a PHLEARN account): phlearn.com/tutorial/make-facial-hair-photoshop/

Create realistic facial hair in Photoshop from scratch — stubble, a beard, or anything in between — by building your own custom brush instead of relying on stock overlays. Once the brush is dialed in, painting the hair on is the easy part.

CHAPTERS
00:00 What you'll be able to do
02:12 Painting a single hair to build the custom brush
04:03 Turning it into a brush with Define Brush Preset
05:00 Dialing in the brush menu settings
08:40 Painting facial hair onto the face
11:05 Before and after

THE STEPS
1. On a new layer, paint one single, perfect hair with the Brush Tool — this becomes your custom brush, so make it count.
2. Select the hair (Marquee Tool, or Cmd/Ctrl-click the layer thumbnail), then go to Edit → Define Brush Preset and name it.
3. Open the Brush Settings panel (Window → Brush Settings) and dial in Shape Dynamics, Scattering, and Angle Jitter — this is what keeps the hair from looking like a repeated stamp.
4. Adjust spacing, roundness jitter, and opacity until test strokes look like real, irregular hair rather than a pattern.
5. Paint the hair onto the face, working in the direction real hair grows.
6. Hold Alt/Option to sample different colors as you go — real facial hair is never one flat color, so mix in lights and darks (and a little white for highlights).

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