Go to a professional hair stylist and chances are - for a fee - you can get them to input your image to their fancy computer, and show you just how you'd look if your hair was cut and styled in a variety of different ways. The professionals pay big money to provide that service, but maybe not for much longer. Virtual hair styles and hair imaging have now become cheaply available to you and I on the Internet.

Now, for not much more than the price of a coffee or two, sites such as Hair Cuts and UpDos allow you to 'try on' up to 4000 different hair styles - all at the click of a button. The cheaper end of the market uses photos or drawings of models wearing the hair styles, but with others, the sky is the limit. Upload your own photo into their software and know precisely how you will look in short hair styles, celebrity hair styles, long hairstyles, curly, straight, punk or celebrity hairstyles, highlights, layering - you name it. With your own photo in the computer, you can try them all to your heart's content!

Have you ever become lost in your own little dreamworld and never wanted to come out? That's what it's like. All the styles and ideas you never had the courage - or the patience to explain to a hair stylist - can now be yours. Imagine a role, or an environmentor a setting ... and instantly transform yourself into the appropriate persona. Or not! Sometimes you get excellent feedback on what you really should avoid! But that's the fun of it. No risks! All thoughts catered for.

Most of the services get you to take a digital photo of yourself or scan a color photo and save it as a .jpg file (scanning software does that for you automatically). You can do it yourself, or use a photo processing store will often do it for a small fee. Each website is a little different, but generally, the upload process is simple and well-explained, and with a few quick clicks your photo travels to their computer, and becomes ready for you to play with. Most sites allow you to upload a number photos, so don't worry if you mess up the first one. Just click on 'refresh' and back to the original. Most sites also have time-based subscriptions, so you'll probably have from 6 months to a year to play as often as you want.

Now, how do you get from beginner to pro in the shortest possible time? Probably by taking a bit of care in preparing. Get someone to take a fresh photo of you. Make it full face-on (take advantage, though, if the software you intend using allows more than one angle). Once the photo is in the softwareyou'll use their tools to blank out all your existing hair, so make that as easy as possible by wetting your hair and slicking it back for the photographer, or tieing it back in a ponytail before you take the photo. The aim is to leave your face clear of hair so it's easy to produce a clean line around your face in the online photograph.

Now ... give yourself plenty of time, because this can become addictive! Do it alone, or with friends - and have a hairstyle ball!