Design & Publishing Center . / . Photoshop . / . Tips & Tricks

This month's theme is blending and feathering.
A number of letters deal with matching one image ot another in montage effect as well as the "feathering" technique. We've posted two brief seminars from previous issues of PST&T. Take a look at "Feathering", and "Scaling". If you've been a subscriber since the beginning you'll most likely have those already.

Tip #104
[Blending Body Parts
Steven writes:
PLEEZE send me step-by-step info on how to blend body parts together. I am trying to place head "A" on body "B" and I can't figure out how to make it look like one complete image. As a newbee, I can't clean the image up to make the "separation line" go away when you attach skin tone parts together. I would like to mix races together and make the connection blend in very nicely.

Okay... since I don't have the parts here in front of me I'll pass along a few starters that should get you into the right frame of mind. As they say: "Parts is Parts."

First let's assume that the tilt and rotate of the donar part matches the attitude of the recipient in a natural way. This is the most important concern because it won't look right if the parts are in an unnatural position no matter how slick you are with Photoshop. (Unless of course you intentionally want to disturb the natural human structure... like two left feet, three breasts, or slightly larger heads for a comic effect, etc.)

The easiest solution is if you can find a crease of natural break. If the recipient is clothed, perhaps the cut should come right around the collar, sleeve or other place where the clothing forms a good break point. With skin to skin it's a bit different task.

1 - Take a look at all the parts involved and make sure they match in terms of color balance, hue and contrast. Where body parts are to match up on "similar" races You'll want to adjust the COLOR BALANCE to get the two parts compatible in color values. I think a side-by-side visual comparison is enough. Use: Brightness/Contrast and the COLOR Levels controls.

2 - Prepare the part where it joins to its new host using the Lasso tool. Depending on resolution, give the tool a "Feather" or "Blend" value... the larger the image, the more feather.

Make the incision as far into the "new" host as possible to allow for the feathering. For example, with an 8-pixel feather, then move the incision 8 pixels further toward the donor. The idea is overlap so that the two pieces overlap. Also feather the donor so that there is no hard edge on the new part.

3 - Use a new layer for the donar part so you can move the part around over top of the host receiving socket. The feather should trail off to transparent so you can see what you're doing.
4 - Move it around until you have it just right.
5 - If the new "joint" needs some touch-up... to blend in veins or say... muscle shape shadows then you'll need to merge the two layers. (SAVE first)
6 - If you've feathered properly you won't have to touch it up. If touch up is necessary, try the smudge tool (the finger) and/or the water drop tool and slowly/carefully rub around over the join. For inter-racial joins this may become more important -- wipe some of the darker color (assuming one of them is darker) over into the lighter one to get a smoother transition.

That's the way I'd attack the project.

Design & Publishing Center . / . Photoshop . / . Tips & Tricks


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