Virtual Hair Styles
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To the right of the user menu is a list showing the latest virtual hairstyles in The Hairstyler's library, and when they were added.  You can click on the latest virtual hairstyles to view them, eg: Bridal Down Curly Virtual Hair Styles, added in November 2005
and Curly Long Virtual Hair Styles, added in December 2005.
With new hair styles added every month, and 53 different hair colors that you can apply to each and every hairdo, this wonderful website offers plenty of scope for budding virtual hair designers. You can try the software as soon as you reach the Members page, by clicking on "Choose a Model" in the left-hand menu. But let's see how we go about getting your photo into The Hairstyler's virtual hair style editor. Virtual Hair Styles Tour |
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and photos not to use
Don't use pictures taken from below or above eye level,
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and don't use pictures taken from the side.
Make sure your hair is tied back out of your face and behind your ears.
Got your photo sorted? Excellent. On to uploading your photo.
Virtual Hair Styles Tour
Uploading Photos to The Hairstyler
Under Photo in the Members Menu, click "Upload".
This page repeats the earlier photo guidelines, and adds instructions on how to upload your picture:
At the bottom of the page, click on the "Browse" button.
This opens a new window so you can locate your head and shoulders photo.
Select your photo and click "Choose". Your screen will return to The Hairstyler's photo upload page.
Click "Upload" and wait.
After a few moments you arrive at The Hairstyler's Face Shape Grid.
Your photograph appears in the left hand frame ready to be resized and positioned to fit the Hairstyler's virtual hair styles.
I used a picture of Keira Knightley.
Since I couldn't find a suitable photo of Keira with her hair tied back, I had to remove her hair completely.
The poor girl looks as if she's had a dreadful accident.
But that will all change once we start equipping Keira Knightley with The Hairstyler's virtual hairstyles.
Virtual Hair Styles Tour - Preparing Your Photo for The Hairstyler
Your photo on the left is overlaid with the yellow outline of The Hairstyler's face shape grid.
The grid is a rough face shape with eye positions marked.
It's almost certainly much smaller than your photo, but that's okay. The Hairstyler provides all the tools you need to match your face to the face shape grid.
If you've done The Hairstyler's online consultation - and it's important that you do - you should by now have a fair idea of your face shape.
Click on the drop-down face shapes menu under Face Shape and Photo Positioning.
You can choose an oval, round, oblong, square, heart, diamond or triangular face shape.
The default grid, which appears when you first see your uploaded photo, is oval:
Oval Face Shape Grid
Here are the other face shapes:
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| Round | Oblong | Square |  |  |  |
| Heart | Diamond | Triangle |
Beneath the face shape menu are the tools for positioning and resizing your photo so that it matches the grid you've chosen.
When you use the tools, adjustments are applied to your photograph. The face shape grid remains locked in place.
The arrows move your photo left, right, up and down. You can also use your mouse directly to click and drag the photo.
Zoom makes the photo bigger or smaller.
Rotation tilts your photo clockwise or anti-clockwise.
The goal is to ensure that the grid accurately outlines your eyes and face.
It's important to get this right, or as right as you can, so that your face will fit the The Hairstyler's virtual hairstyles.
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| Oval Grid | Oblong Grid |
Keira Knightley matched the oval face shape grid best and that's odd, because her face is more rectangular than oval.
But the oblong grid wouldn't do at all.
Her head was also tilted for the camera, too, so that several clicks of rotation were needed.
Virtual Hair Styles Tour
Adjusting Photo Color and Quality
Adjusting Photo Color and Quality
Click on Photo Correction to change the brightness, color and contrast levels of your photo, or adjust the sharpness and speckling.
When you're happy with the size, positioning, color and contrast, click "Save Photo".
Virtual Hair Styles Tour - The Hairstyler Finished Photo
The Hairstyler now displays your saved photo in its adjusted size, complete with a default virtual hairstyle.
Check that your photo fits the default hair style properly.
If it doesn't, click on the "Back" button and adjust the photo settings. You can also click "Reset Photo" to go back to the original photo you uploaded. This discards all the changes you've made.
But if everything's okay and your photo fits the hair style, click the "View Hairstyles" button.
And that's the hard part done! You've got a photo that matches all 3,500 (and counting!) virtual hair styles at The Hairstyler.
You're about to enter your own virtual hair salon ... and it's one of the biggest virtual hair salons there is!
Virtual Hair Styles Tour - The Hairstyler's
Hair Style Editor
You'll see straight away that you can do far more with your photo here at The Hairstyler than you can do at some other sites.
You can view each virtual hair style from the back, and from both sides, left and right - not with your own face attached, sadly - for that you have to go to Stellure.
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| Left | Back | Right |
You have access to an enormous number of colors to apply to your virtual hair styles:
| Natural | Blonde | Ash | Gold |
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Brown | Copper | Violet | Red |  |  |  |  |
Beside the colors is another panel for selecting the style, texture and length of the virtual hair styles you wish to view.
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| Style | Texture | Length |
Hair styles in your chosen range will be presented in panels of six.
You can scroll through these virtual hair styles with the forward and backward arrows above the pictures.
Or you can go straight to a particular panel with the drop-down page number menu:
The "Before & After" button displays your original photo with the current hair style, and without.
In The Hairstyler, each virtual hair style has its own descriptive name, like "Cropped", "Bangs Away", "Fresh Flicks", "Wispy Layers" or "Sassy".
And as you apply each virtual hair style to your photograph, the scrolling box beneath the picture gives a description of that hair style.
The description includes styling tips, face shapes to which the hair style is suited, and maintenance - high or low maintenance, time required, techniques and types of products recommended.
The Hairstyler provides this information for every one of the thousands of styles in its virtual hair styles library. It's all there waiting for you to try it out.
So let's give The Hairstyler's virtual hair styles a whirl.
Virtual Hair Styles Tour
Trying on Hair Styles at The Hairstyler
To choose a category of hair styles, select a style, texture and length. Then click "Select".
We're going to try Everyday Curly Medium Length hairstyles.
Here's our first panel of six:
After this one we have 18 more panels of Everyday Curly Medium Length Hair Styles to browse!
They're all virtual!
And they're all available at the click of a button!
The first hair style in each panel is automatically applied to your photograph. Change it simply by clicking on another hair style.
Clearly we need to make some adjustments.
Virtual Hair Styles Tour
Adjusting a Hairstyler Hair Style
It's easy to adjust your photo to fit, with tools similar to those you used earlier with the face shape grid.
And as was the case with the face shape grid, it's the photo that moves or changes as you apply each tool.
The virtual hair style itself remains locked in position until you replace it with a different hair style.
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| You can move the photo left | You or right |
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| You can move the photo up | or down |  |  |
| You can make the photo smaller | or bigger |
Whatever it takes to make your face match the virtual hair style of the moment.
Changing the color of a virtual hair style is easy. Beside the photo, just click on the name of the color panel you want, and within that panel select a specific color.
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The color change is reflected immediately in the hair style worn by your virtual self.
Red seems to suit her, but we're not crazy about Flying Curls on Keira.
Virtual Keira Knightley
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"Fresh Curls".
Just a click reveals more virtual hair styles in red:
Virtual Keira Knightley
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"Spiral Madness"
Virtual Keira Knightley
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"Spiral Design"
But from Keira Knightley's point of view, this must be the piece de resistance of our brief adventure among The Hairstyler's virtual hair styles:
Virtual Keira Knightley
in
"Sophisticated".
Virtual Hair Styles Tour
When You Find a Style You Like
You can email a photo with your chosen virtual hair style.
Click on "Email your Style"
A pop-up page presents your selected photo with fields for your name, email address and any comments you want to include, as well as your recipients' email addresses.
You can send your virtual hair styles to two addresses at a time. Here's what a virtual hair style emailed from The Hairstyler looks like:
You can also print a virtual hair style, or save it to your favourites.
At any time you can view your saved hairstyles by clicking Favourites in the Members Menu.
Clicking on a thumbnail in Favourites opens a new window containing the full size photo, complete description, color, the category to which the hair style belongs, tools for repositioning your photo, and buttons for emailing or re-saving the image.
That's virtually it for The Curly Hair Styles Magazine tour of virtual hair styling at The Hairstyler.
I hope you've found it useful.
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