Create Fabulous, Realistic Eyelashes on Your Selfies

Photoshop post-processing techniques

Want to add eyelashes to a photo? You can use readymade eyelashes brushes and tweak them using the warp or puppet warp tool, or your stylus pen and set up a special brush for it, or even make the base eyelashes in Illustrator and then tweak them in Photoshop.​ There's tons of ways!

But today, I would like to show you a method to make eyelashes in Photoshop that only uses default Photoshop tools without the need to download special brushes or even having a stylus pen and where you can control the size and position of every single hair.

Step 1

Open your picture in Photoshop.

Step 2

Select the Brush Tool (B).

Step 3

In the top toolbar select the Hard Round Brush, set the size to 2, the Hardness to 100%, be sure to have the mode set to “Normal”, the Opacity and Flow set to 100% and the “Always use Pen Pressure for Size” icon checked.

Step 4

Go to Layer > New > Layer. Name this layer as “Eyelashes” and click OK.

Step 5

Select the Pen Tool (P) and in the top toolbar be sure to have the mode set to “Path”.

Step 6

Using the Pen Tool, draw a single eyelash in the place where you want to add a new one to your subject.
Tip: Start drawing a bit below where the eyelashes begin.

Step 7

With the Pen Tool still selected, right-click on the path and from the dropdown menu select “Stroke Path”.

Step 8

In the Stroke Path dialog box, be sure to have the Brush option selected in the dropdown menu, check the “Simulate Pressure" option and click OK.

Step 9

Delete or Deselect the Work Path.

Step 10

Using with the Pen Tool (P) make a new path in the new place where you want to put your eyelashes.

Step 11

With the Pen Tool still selected and with the path active, right-click on the path and from the dropdown menu select “Stroke Path”.

Step 12

In the Stroke Path dialog box, be sure to have the Brush option selected in the dropdown menu, check the “Simulate Pressure" option and click OK.

Step 13

Now all you have to do is repeat this process until you have done all the new eyelashes in your image.
Tip: Do not make them perfectly even and at the same size or using the same brush thickness, instead try to vary one from the other to get a more natural look.

Step 14

Once you finish drawing the eyelashes, simply bring down the layer opacity to around 90-95%.

And here is our final result. Of course you can add more or less eyelashes to your picture, but always keep them uneven to achieve a more natural look.

Some Final Notes

There are of course many other different ways to make eyelashes in Photoshop, but with this technique you have full control over every single hair you apply even if you do not have special eyelashes brushes installed or a stylus pen.