There is a much more simpler way to do this thanks to Morris Ginberg who commented on the post and suggested using the updated Photomerge feature. It seems using Photomerge in Photoshop CS3 does the exact same thing as using Auto-Align and Auto-Blend, but does it all for you in one step (ok, maybe two steps if you count opening the Photomerge window).

So how do you use Photomerge?

Open up Photoshop CS3, then go File > Automate > Photomerge

The Photomerge window will open.

As shown in the image, Browse for your photos, then hit OK.
That’s all to it! You’ll end up with pretty much the same result* as if you were to use Auto-Align and Auto-Blend.

* = Using Photomerge over Auto-Align and Auto-Blend results in a flattened document (that’s one layer). By using Auto-Align and Auto-Blend, it leaves all the layers intact, as well as the layer masks. For advanced users who prefer a non-destructive editing approach, Auto-Align and Auto-Blend might be the better option

If you’d like to test Photomerge immediately but have no photos to work with, feel free to try it out with my photos from the Auto-Align and Auto-Blend example:

And the final result…

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I tried my best to merge the photographs in Photoshop CS manually using layer masking and free transformation and managed to merge just three of the photographs together and the result was this:

The first of many tips from the Creative License Tour

On June 14, I attended the Creative License Tour and learned of two features I did not know existed in Photoshop. These features are Auto-Align and Auto-Blend, and this will change the way we take photographs as we know it.

Typically to capture shots which are required for a panorama, you need to take shots which revolve around an axis as shown in the diagram below:

Image courtesy of Apple

With these two new features in Adobe Photoshop CS3, the tripod is no longer needed. When you perform Auto-Align, Photoshop will scan through the layers of the current document and calculate which pixels match with the proper layer, and transforms each layer appropriately to achieve astonishing results. What this means is that you can take a photograph every few steps while walking along a street (without a tripod of course), and Photoshop can do all the dirty work for you.

Auto-Align does all the nasty free-transforming for you

Let’s take those 5 photographs I took last year and use them as an example.
To create a panorama out of these, it requires just 3 steps:

1. Bring all the photographs into one document in Photoshop
   
2. Select all the layers
   
3. Edit > Auto-Align Layers
   
   (After you click it, you will be presented with some advanced options. I use automatic because I trust Photoshop more than I do myself, but feel free to experiment)

And voila!

Ok, so maybe you’re not so impressed yet. The issue is that each photo can have different exposures and the layers are overlapping. This is where Auto-Blend comes in.

Auto-Blend: This is the part where your jaw drops

The Auto-Blend feature of Photoshop CS3 is meant to be used in succession after Auto-Align. Essentially, it masks each layer appropriately after they’ve been aligned so that they blend properly, resulting in one smooth panoramic photograph.

To use Auto-Blend, just follow these two steps:

1. Select all the layers in your document
2. Edit > Auto-Blend Layers

And the result…

And the final result cropped…

When I first saw this demonstrated at the Creative License Tour, I was in total awe and amazement, it’s like Photoshop did some magic trick on me! Even as I did this again for this post, I was still amazed.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments, stay tuned for more tips I learned from the Creative License Tour.

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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:
  [See post to watch Flash video]
  Can’t see the details? Download the DivX version

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.

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Lately on Facebook, I’ve been having a little bit of fun with my profile pictures. Instead of using something like a self-portrait, or God forbid, a “myspace angle“, I’ve superimposed my face on top of famous movie characters.

My ‘Darth Sammy’ Profile Picture. Original artwork: “The Immolation” by Louie Mantia

From the before/after image above, you should get a pretty good idea of what this post is about now if you didn’t fully understand what I meant by superimposing before. If you’re looking to improve your skills in using Photoshop, have a little fun, or produce a humorous profile picture for your preferred IM app/social networking site, read on.

(Note: This tutorial requires Photoshop CS+)

1. First, find a picture of something you’d like to superimpose your face on. I like to use screen captures from movies, movie posters and the like. Let’s start my example with the latest superimposition I’ve done, the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest movie poster.
2. Next, we need a picture of your face which fits the angle of the face you would like to replace. I chose to replace Johnny Depp’s face, so I took a snapshot of myself looking in the same direction he was. The angle is really important, so try your best to get the angle to look the same. To do this step, a digital camera will suffice, but if you have a Mac with an iSight, Photo Booth is really great for this.

   

3. Open up your self-portrait in Photoshop, and duplicate the Background layer so you essentially have 2 layers of your self portrait.

   

   Why have duplicate layers? We’re going to be altering one of them and having an untouched version is nice just in case you screw up.

4. Next, create a new layer in between those two and make it a neon bright color such as cyan or magic pink.

   

5. There are probably a ton of ways that you can go about superimposing, but this is probably where most methods differ. Here, I make use of the Extract tool which I never learned how to use until after about 7 years of using Photoshop. It was at this time that I came across a tutorial by Bert Monroy which covered it and now it’s one of my most favorite tools.

   Why not use the pen tool or marquee tool to cut out our face from our self-portrait? The Extract tool will “softly” cut it out and it’s a lot quicker too. In the end, it allows for better blending and awesome results.

   Now, to actually using this tool…

   Select the “Background copy” layer, then from the Photoshop menu, go to:
   Filter > Extract
   
   
   You should now be presented with a separate window with your selected layer. By default, the highlighting tool should be selected (the icon looks like a felt marker). If not, select it at the left of this window.
   Now, trace around your face that you would like to extract as shown below.

   

6. Photoshop still needs to know whether you want to select inside your tracing, or outside of your tracing. Select the paint bucket tool from the left, and fill inside your tracing as shown below.

   

7. Now press “OK” to the right and you should have the following result:

   

   It might look like the result is rough around the edges, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing (it only looks bad because of the bright contrasting background behind it).

8. Open your movie poster from step 1 into Photoshop and take your face you just extracted and drag and drop it into the movie poster.

   Obviously, my picture is not to scale as it should be.

   This can easily be fixed by Free Transforming the layer with your face.
   For those who haven’t discovered this tool yet, right click anywhere inside the window, and click on “Free Transform” from the contextual menu. Once you activate Free Transform, you should see a boundary box around the layer with your face. Just treat it like you’re resizing a window (you’re what you call “scaling” here), and resize it to fit the face you want to replace. In this case, we need to make it smaller so it covers up Johnny Depp’s face, but not leave it too large either.

   

9. After cleaning up our layer by erasing some of the rough edges which stick out. We’re pretty much finished with out task of superimposing.

   

   In the above image, you might notice that my face is a little bit more yellower than the original self-portrait. This is to make it so my face blends in better with the overall image as the movie poster has an underlying yellow tone. You can try the built in “Match Color” feature of Photoshop, or do manual hue adjustments.

Stay tuned for next time on how to add in the little details to make your face blend in better (eg. beard, makeup), and how to make it look like you were casted, instead of Johnny Depp:

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After poking around Photoshop’s list of keyboard shortcuts I found the shortcuts I needed:

• Decrease brush size: [
• Increase brush size: ]

I actually feel slightly embarrassed that I didn’t know about these keyboard shortcuts after all these years of using Photoshop. It would have helped to know these earlier, but I guess you learn something new every day.

I then mapped these shortcuts to the PowerMate in System Preferences. As you can see in the screenshot, I also mapped the following for rotation while pushed down:

• Step backward (go back one step in history): Shift+Cmd+Z
• Step forward (go forward one step in history): Option+Cmd+Z

Of course, these shortcuts are for the Mac, I believe the equivalent keyboard shortcuts for Windows would be Ctrl+Alt+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z respectively.

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