Fun With Photography

Indoor or Outdoor Photography?
During the cold winter city months, when things are slow, photographers in New York like to expand on their creative photography ideas and sometimes choose to do so outdoors.  Now I am not going to say I don't shoot outside in the cold, however, I find I become a much more creative photographer while I am either warm or when there is a generous amount of money involved. :)

Fun With Photography
One thing I like to do is blend my face onto a movie poster or iconic picture. How do I do that you ask? First you need to come up with a theme. Today my theme is Jai Catalano in Pirates of the Unkempt. Once my theme is ready, I look for a good quality photo online to give myself a specific look I want to mimic. Then, I place myself away from my Canon 7D camera which is on it's Cullmann tripod and I take several self portraits by triggering my RC-6 Wireless Remote Control.   

In this case I don't worry about the composition as I only want to blend myself into Johnny Depp. Wait!!! That didn't come out right. Anyway, then, I take a look at the dozen or so images that I took and chose one that I think will go well with my chosen theme. 

Blending 2 Faces In Photoshop
Here is what I do.

1. Open up the theme image in Photoshop.

2. Open up the self portrait image in a separate tab. Don't use the self portrait image as a layer yet.

3. Use the lasso tool to draw around the part of the self portrait image you want to copy and blend into your theme. In this case I only wanted my face so I left my body out of it.

4. Then copy and paste your face on top of the theme image (pirate's image)

5. Then lower the opacity to 60% on the self portrait image so you can see the theme image underneath.

6. Go to edit then free transform and try to match the eyes, nose and mouth of the self portrait image with the theme image. (This will take a few tries as everyone's face is a different size)

7. Once you have matched the 2 images up perfectly create a layer mask and set your foreground color to the opposite color of your layer mask. (In my case my layer mask is white so my foreground color will be black. 

8. Erase all unnecessary parts of the face that take away from the image. Johnny Depp has a mustache, goatee and makeup so I need that in my image.  However I make sure to keep my lips, eyes, nose and check bones in it to give the illusion that my face is really in the image.

9. Once you are satisfied with the image merge the images together and then create another background layer and change to color. 

10. Go to the eye dropper tool and click on a color in the theme image to add to your face color so that you can blend the skin tone.

For extra effect you can add a little sharpening to the photo or a Topaz filter to the finished photo.
 
And that is pretty much it.  It took me 17 minutes to do this photo. 

What to see other images that I created from the past? Click the links to some of my previous blog posts below to see what other characters I have created. 

Blending 2 Faces In Photoshop
Here is what I do.

1. Open up the theme image in Photoshop.

2. Open up the self portrait image in a separate tab. Don't use the self portrait image as a layer yet.

3. Use the lasso tool to draw around the part of the self portrait image you want to copy and blend into your theme. In this case I only wanted my face so I left my amazing body out of it.

4. Then copy and paste your face on top of the theme image (pirate's image)

5. Then lower the opacity to 50% on the self portrait image so you can see the theme image underneath.

6. Go to edit then free transform and try to match the eyes, nose and mouth of the self portrait image with the theme image. (This will take a few tries as everyone's face is a different size)

7. Once you have matched the 2 images up perfectly create a layer mask and set your foreground color to the opposite color of your layer mask. (In my case my layer mask is white so my foreground color will be black. 

8. Erase all unnecessary parts of the face that take away from the image. Johnny Depp has a mustache and goatee so I need that in my image.  However I make sure to keep my lips, eyes, nose and check bones in it to give the illusion that my face is really a part of the image.

9. Once you are satisfied with the image merge the images together and then create another background layer and change to color. 

10. Go to the eye dropper tool and click on a color in the theme image to add to your face color so that you can match the skin tone.

And that is pretty much it.  It really doesn't take that long once you have an idea. For extra effect you can add a little sharpening to the photo or add a Topaz filter to the finished image.

What to see other images that I created from the past? Click the links to some of my previous blog posts below or click on to my flickr profile.

How I Got Market Samurai For Free

Ways To Make Money In 2012

10 Dirty Christmas Phrases That Were Meant To Be Clean

It's Not The Thought That Counts

Flickr