Have you ever wished that you could live someone else’s life for a while? Well, with the magic of Photoshop, you can!

For this assignment, you’ll blend your face (or mine, or a willing classmate’s) onto a new body, or take someone else’s face and put it on your body. You’ll take your new subject (new face on head/body) and put this person on a new background.

Technically, you don’t need to use a photo of you, me, or someone in the class, but it REALLY HELPS to be able to pose/look in a very specific direction and make sure that you’re using somewhat similar lighting.

MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING HIGH-QUALITY IMAGES! Your end result will not be good if you start with one or more low-quality images! Use a school camera to take your photos if you can.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT IMAGES IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART! Take your time! Make sure that the images would wok and make some kind of sense together. Ideally, the new face will come from a head that is looking in the same direction as the target head. Ideally the light will come from a similar direction.

High-quality photos can easily be found on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/ Click the arrow on top of the thumbnail in your search results to download

If you ABSOLUTELY MUST use another site, MAKE SURE you’re using Google (NOT BING) and click Tools

and change the Size to Large

If you wish to use a picture of yourself or a classmate, borrow a camera from me and take the photo that way. If you want to try to use my picture (or a photo of my kid), there are some HERE

How to start

I would find ALL THREE of the required photos (face, body/head, background) FIRST.

I’d like to print some of these out, so start with a file that is 8.5 x 11 (or 11 x 8.5 if you want it Landscape) with a resolution of 300 pixels per inch

SAVE YOUR WORK in OneDrive right away!

Add each of your photos by going to File and Place Embedded

I want to see a layer for ALL OF THE UNTOUCHED PHOTOS!

Rename your layers and make a copy. Lock and turn off the original. Work on the copy

Background & Subject

Resize your background PROPORTIONALLY so you don’t squish/stretch it

On your body/head layer,

click the Select menu and choose Subject

Make sure the seletion looks good (no parts missing, no extra parts of the background included)

The easiest way to separate the body from the background is Ctrl + J (copy to new layer). Name it.

Now I have my new body on top of the background:

How to swap faces

There are a lot of great tutorials on YouTube that will show you how to use Photoshop to do a face swap.

Here’s a good one:

Here’s another:

You don’t really have to do a reflection for this one. I’ll get you to use these skills in another project later on, and you’ll do a reflection for that one.