I think the general way people do it is draw the 'shapes' of the hair in your base colors, and some of the highlights, working from a larger brush to smaller and smaller, and then finally with a 1 or 3 point brush do the stray 'strands' that go flying everywhere and such.... I dunno I still have yet to figure it out.
Lots and lots of tutorials on Deviant Art, though!! Just do a search for some and there some really great stuff there.
OOo Oooo i found a FABULOUS tutorial on it!!! 
You can find it here I've used some of the ideas in there to pretty good effect. He uses some steps I leave out (I don't use gray flats first, or the magic wand) but his coloring ideas are GREAT! (He's also got a few other good ones on skin etc.)
Yeah I have used that tutorial also, and do like it> I also skip the grey steps and strat with the clumped areas in color. But ty for reposting it.
More specifically having trouble with black hair looking more than just well all black.
Use a lot of dark blues, and don't forget you can go with light blues for highlights and such.
Just stay away from greys. 
And remember your light sources... depending on how the hair is it could take any manner of other colors.
here's another one:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...hreadid=259468
www.battlewraith.deviantart.com
Here's my favorite hair tut
Clicky!
Avoid black; as Rowr said, use dark blues (or dark colors in general like dark browns) as even very slight variations in dark shades will be picked up by the human eye. I'd also recomend not trying to do every strand but 'clumps' and only strands as needed to add flavor and a little realism - like a few strands to suggest wind or across the face. I'd also try using lots and lots of layers - paint, and repaint and repaint again using progressively smaller brushes to get a more layered look.
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"...I know dj has posted this stuff before, but wanted to know how others approached this..."
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D'OH! I can't chime in?
*goes to sit in a corner*
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Here's my favorite hair tut
Clicky!
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Aaawwwww preeeeeettyyyyy! 
I love her stuff. I'm very pleased with myself if I can get even 1/10th of her quality and detail.
Another trick I have very recently 'stumbled upon' that more experienced artists who work digitally will probably go 'duh!' on is: Work in as high of resolution as you can. If you have to, crop your hair/head out, blow it up in a new image, work it and then paste it back in and rescale it down. When you scale it down, a lot of the detail still keeps and its much finer than you would have been able to achieve working in the lower resolution. I've started doing this and it helps a lot. A 1 pixel brush on a 400x600 pic is a lot finer detail than a 1 px brush on a 100x150 pic. Really helps fror layering and stray hairs.
Anyway, this may have been obvious to everyone else, but it honeslty just occured to me recently, I saw some big improvements in hair when I started doing it.
Just pour shampoo on your screen. If you wanna get reeeeally detailed, you can pour some on your tablet, speakers, computer, and if you wanna get even MORE detailed, get out TEH CONDITIONER OF DOOOOM... Muahahahahaaaaa!!!
No please dj do CHIME in please please please!!! I can not find your old post and would like to see your oppinion again.
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"...I know dj has posted this stuff before, but wanted to know how others approached this..."
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D'OH! I can't chime in?
*goes to sit in a corner*
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*offers dunce cap?*
What is the best way to do hair in ps. I have done it by doing a base layer color than applying various other colors overtop by basically drawing strands, followed finally by highlights etc. Is there a more efficient way? This time I am thinking of doing it all by drawing various width and length strands, then effects etc. I know dj has posted this stuff before, but wanted to know how others approached this.