adobe photoshop - How to decontaminate black edges on hair

I have a pretty decent knowledge of Photoshop, and have used masks and levels etc to remove backgrounds a fair bit (as well as the edge refinement tools they have now). I am having a tricky time getting black background off of light colored hair.

Is there something I can do to drain out all this black smoothly or another path to take earlier on? The decontaminate color option on the refine edge dialog isn't coming close.

Right now I've used the lasso tool to make a rough selection and then the smart edge detection with a radius of about 30px... (tried using channels and levels earlier with about the same result)

Answer

I would try using the image itself as a layer mask, since the lightness of the hair against the background is roughly a mask already. e.g.:

1. Select all, copy


2. Add a layer mask to the colour layer



3. Alt/option-click (mac) the layer mask to edit it directly


4. Paste

Then, brightness/contrast this mask, and paint in the mask of the main part of the face by hand.

This, in combination with other techniques might work!