Photoshop Question

Is anyone familiar with the Photoshop technique - and could explain it step-by-step to me - of replacing the face of a person from one photo and replacing it with another face?

Thank you.

there are actually many ways to do that, it depends on the types of images you're using that will decide the best technique.

gtee said:

Is anyone familiar with the Photoshop technique - and could explain it step-by-step to me - of replacing the face of a person from one photo and replacing it with another face?

Thank you.

Click to expand...

thats a tugh thing for a newb to start with and may take quit a time to make picture look real. I'll try to explain. I will descibe it for photoshop CS.
1. both faces must be shot from the same angle
2. its better if the shape of the faces are somewhat alike
3. you need to define main charachteristics of the face, for example forehead, nose, eyes and lips.
4. take laso tool and select the face you want to add on.
5. drag it on the original.
6. change layer opasity so that you can see the original through it, but thesecond face is still visable.
7. use guids to pinpoint the lokation of eyes, nose and lips on the original.
8. now drag the face layer and position it. you may need to do some transform. just a little, not disfigure it
9.change layer opasity back to 100%
10.make some adjustments (levels, hue/saturation, color, contrast) to match face and origina.

now thats just the basic stuff. you can do almost anything in photoshop and to get real nice result it may take several hours.

I thought he meant like taking someone's head and putting it on another body.

Thank you

Macman said:

I thought he meant like taking someone's head and putting it on another body.

Click to expand...

I did - but I am VERY grateful for ANY replies.
You have both been very helpful. Thank you.

I suggest using the pen tool to draw the line around the head, as you can better control curves and cut out what you don't want, then in the paths palette, click the little triangle
in the top left corner of the palette with the path selected in the paths palette, click the triangle, then select make selection, now you can cut it and paste it, or copy and paste to the other image, adjust it as you need. note: that head keeps the resolution from the doc it comes from, so choose your images with common, or close to common resolutions, like both 400 ppi, use Edit:Transform: use these transform features if you need to adjust it,
also, you can drag and drop instead of copying and pasting as I said above, thats one of the simplest or easiest ways. if you'd like to do this using masking techniques instead, let us know.

It's easy to do, however, I may be struggling to explain it properly!...

Open a new blank page in Photoshop with a decent resolution and set the background to transparent.

Then open the file with the "new head" - i.e. the one you're going to superimpose on (I'll call it) the "original image".

Drag and drop the "new head" onto the transparent page and then zoom in on it. Use the erase/ rubber tool to accurately delete the unwanted background. Probably works best with the sharp edged brushes, but depends how much of the head your using I suppose.

Once you have cleared the unwanted background and have the "new head" on its own, lassoo it, copy it and then paste (or drag and drop) it onto the "original image".

It will "float" on a new layer, so you can easily reposition it.

You can then scale it, rotate it or what-have-you, alter the colour balance/ hue saturation/ levels etc for the perfect result, position and scale. Using the smudge/ blur tool will help to blend it better.

Hope this makes sense!

Works great for me as I tend to find that using the lassoo tool on its own tends to leave fairly raggedy edges.

Masking

Macman said:

I suggest using the pen tool to draw the line around the head, as you can better control curves and cut out what you don't want, then in the paths palette, click the little triangle
in the top left corner of the palette with the path selected in the paths palette, click the triangle, then select make selection, now you can cut it and paste it, or copy and paste to the other image, adjust it as you need. note: that head keeps the resolution from the doc it comes from, so choose your images with common, or close to common resolutions, like both 400 ppi, use Edit:Transform: use these transform features if you need to adjust it,
also, you can drag and drop instead of copying and pasting as I said above, thats one of the simplest or easiest ways. if you'd like to do this using masking techniques instead, let us know.

Click to expand...

Macman,

Thank you for your help.

Is it easy to explain the masking method and would it be easier?

Thank you.

masking...

well, if you want to use masking, there are also different masking methods. the easiest way would be to open both images in photoshop, to make it a lot easier on yourself, you should probably use 2 images that are similar at least in the angle of the face and lighting, and maybe skin tone would help too, depending on the subject. also possibly image size/resolution, depending on what you want to do with the image.
with both images open, drag the image whose face you want to change onto the images window in photoshop, it will create a new layer on top of the image whose face you wish to use. with the layer that you drag and dropped selected, drop its opacity to a reasonable amount so you can try to line up where you want the head, the eyes and mouth are the best thing to use when trying to align them. with this layer selected, in the layers palette, click the 'add layer mask' button on the very bottom of the palette, its the second button from the left. now on that layer, theres a white box next to the thumbnail of that layer, click on that box, now the layer mask is selected, 2 important things to remember going in is that 1. black takes away, 2. whites adds it back. ok, with the layer mask selected, select the brush tool, make the foreground color black, and the background color white, so they are available as you need them, wit black selected as the foreground color, start painting what you want to replace in the image, you should probably start with the flow, opacity, hardness, etc at default, or 100%. you can change this to get different transitions between subjects as you need to, wow its too early for this, if you make a mistake, use white to undo it, just hit x to switch between the background and foreground colors, painting with white will add back what you've removed using black, around the edges of the head or areas where the image will merge, a softer edged brush may be more useful, shift+[ decrease the brush hardness for a wet/feathery edged brush,so what this mask is basically doing is allowing you to see through to the image behind and make changes and such, I need some coffee :biohazard , there are other steps I didn't mention above that may have made things easier, but I just woke up and started typing. you should be able to go from there, it's fairly simple to do. I should make a tutorial on this or something. o, don't forget, you can also use the burn tool to make the skin a little darker or the dodge tool to make it lighter if you need to, but don't go nuts. you can also change brush opacity when painting near edges for a smoother blending of images. ok, I'm off today, so I am going back to sleep, I'll check back after a while.

Success - to a degree

Thank you to those who replied to my question.
I have had success - not to a professional degree but I'm very pleased.

In the end I opted to cut-out the whole body using the Lasso tool > Feathered the outline a little > Dragged it onto my background and used the Background eraser to 'touch up' the final product.

Thank you again for your prompt help and support.