Having Fun with Photoshop: Superimposing (Part 2)

In my last post about superimposing with Photoshop, I mentioned that I would create a secondary tutorial on how to superimpose the ‘extra features’ which would make your doctored image look even more believable.

Today, I will continue with my Pirates of the Caribbean movie poster example:

Give yourself an instant beard

If you recall the result we came up with in my last post, I was missing the beard which was essential for the part of Captain Jack Sparrow. To give yourself an instant beard or do any sort of basic ‘doctoring of an image’, the clone stamp tool will be your new best friend.

• How the clone stamp tool works
  The clone stamp tool is like the brush tool, except that whatever you’re painting comes from a source instead of just a color, hence the reference of cloning.
• Precision is key
  When working with the clone stamp tool, precision is the key to making a convincing superimposition. What you will want to do is zoom into your document until you can see the individual pixels. When you find a pixel that contrasts really well from the ones around it, that is a really good spot to source from because it allows you find that same exact spot in your other document. To help explain this, I’ve cut out a segment of the Extract episode of Bert Monroy’s show Pixelperfect which you can watch below:

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Taking what you just learnt from that video, if we zoom up into the original and then the image where I still need to grow the facial hair, we can use Johnny Depp’s eye as the source for pinpoint accuracy.

At this point, you can start painting in the beard on a new layer above the layer of the face you superimposed earlier. Having your beard on a separate layer allows you to move it around and erase any rough edges.

Pirates wore eyeshadow?

If you pay close attention to the first picture at the top of this post, you might notice that I gave myself some eyeshadow via Photoshop (there’s no way I would put that stuff on in real life!)

Giving yourself eyeshadow is pretty simple. Just create a new layer above the layer of your face, set it to multiply and use a small black brush at around 50% opacity and start putting it on. If you have never put makeup on before, ask someone you know who uses it for a few tips

My face doesn’t seems to match the overall tone

You will also notice that in the final result I looked a little more yellower. You could achieve this in real life by getting jaundiced, but it’s quite unpleasant, so Photoshop will help us here as well.

To adjust the tone of a layer, the more recent versions of Photoshop have a feature called Variations.

With Variations, you can easily adjust the tone of a layer by selecting the options given to you:

• More Green
• More Yellow
• More Red
• More Magenta
• More Blue
• More Cyan

Each time you click one of these options, you will adjust the tone a little bit, so clicking on it multiple times will have a stronger effect. You will see these changes reflected in the image that says Current Pick. You can also adjust highlights and shadows besides the default midtones, so go ahead and experiment with it.

Other Notes

In the final result, I got rid of Johnny Depp’s name at the top and casted myself instead. How did I do this? Just use the clone stamp tool and sample a nearby region so you can get rid of the text, essentially leaving an empty spot for your name.

Here’s a one-minute video demonstrating how to effectively sample a nearby region to get rid of some large text that overlays the image:

Other than that, these are pretty much all the techniques I use to superimpose. Feel free to leave any questions or comments you may have.