Re: Photoshop surgery: swapping heads and other body parts
- From: "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" <samandjanet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 23:40:10 -0000
Monte Cristo wrote:
On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 15:27:55 -0000, "\(not quite so\) Fat Sam"
<samandjanet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
James wrote:
Greetings all,
For quite some time I've been working in Photoshop to perfect the
art of "swapping heads" and other forms of "Photoshop surgery"
(some may call it "Photoshop trickery"). After much time, trial and
error, I find that I can do it if a person has the patience. But
still more times than not, there seems to be a lingering "fake"
aspect to the touched up images. I do my best to match lighting,
color, grain, texture and resolution, but yet they never seem to be
quite perfect. I know it can be done because I've seen other
examples floating around here and there, usually on the web, where
you know a Photoshop master got in there and did a completely
believable composite. Even sometimes of something that can't
possibly exist but yet it looks totally believable, and you
findyorself asking, "is that real?"
(perhaps some of you have seen the picture of the "jet airliner,"
where what is normally the main long passenger section is one big
engine, and under the wings where the engines would normally be, are
small pods or "passenger sections.")
Seems like I've been trying forever (a very long time) to find good
information, books or tutorials (preferably video tutorials) on this
somewhat obscure subject regarding Photoshop. Some books like "How
To Cheat In Photoshop" by Steve Caplin, touch on the subject
briefly but are otherwise very lacking and usually devote only 1 or
2 pages to the matter. Who are the masters? Is there anyone that
puts out training or tutorials on this specific subject? I would be
very grateful if anyone could let me know. Thank you.
James
The best advice I can give you is practice practice practice.
And also remember that you're always going to be your own worst
critic.
You know what you did to create the fake, so your eye is naturally
drawn to the flaws. Other observers won't necessarilly spot them.
You can bet that the guy who did the example you're quoting with the
airliner probably wasn't entirely happy with the job, but realised
that to his own eyes, it was as good as it's going to get. He also
probably realised that to other folks, those imperfections weren't
as obvious, and might not get noticed at all.
It's interesting you say that as I've thought about this quite a few
times. I'm sure every artist goes through it. What is the litmus test
as to whether something looks "real enough" or not? It's
interesting... I snap a picture with my Nikon D2X, print it out, show
it to people and it looks "real," because it is real. But in all my
years of working with Lightwave (and more recently, 3DS) I have seen
only ONE rendering of a human face that looked absolutely real. And I
guess it took many hours of rendering time for the creator to render
that one frame, as I understand it. I'm sure you guys have had the
experience where you had to save the project, shut off the computer
overnight, and wake up the next morning so you could take a "fresh
look" at your image. We sometimes seem to get too involved in our
projects, thereby temporarily diminishing our capacity to see it
objectively. So we have to step back for a while and then look at it
again.
Yeah, I've been there too.
In a previous episode of my life, I worked as an illustrator, doing
traditional artwork with paints, pencils and inks. I've encountered this so
many times. Yuo go to bed of an evening thinking "I'll finish that tomorrow"
only to wake up the next day and realise that it doesn't need any more work.
But the opposite can be equally true. I've found myself going to bed
thinking a job was finished, but when I viewed it again in the morning with
fresh eyes, I could see tons of errors and realised I didn't like it much.
I don't make any claim to be an expert on photoshop, but I regard
myself as a competent user.
These are a couple of examples of my work. Because I did them, my eye
automatically gets drawn to the flaws which other people probably
wouldn't notice. I know they're not perfect, but I also know that
I'm much more critical of them than other people.
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/302675533
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/318974850
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/303645420
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/306190732
Hey Sam, first I want to thank all of you for your advice and input as
it is much appreciated. In my estimation your projects are quite
superb. I can't look a them and really see any "seems" where the
alterations took place. And with all respect to your work I want to
point out that your images are clearly meant to be perceived as a
"photo trick," if you take my meaning.
Hi, yeah, I regard these as photo trickery. Trying to create a surreal scene
which looks like it could have been real.
This is sort of what I do for fun in photoshop.
When I'm working seriously in Photoshop, I do restorations and repairs of
old or damaged photos.
You can see some of my restoration work here...
http://flickr.com/photos/swampy_bogtrotter/sets/72157600045824330/
I think I skewed off a bit on a tangent in my initial post talking
about the airliner. The main focus of what I want to do is composite
heads and/or whole bodies if possible, so my initial post may have
been a bit misleading (my own fault).
I know what you mean, but the principles are the same regardless.
There are some things that you can do to give yourself a head start and make
the job a bit easier.
Before you start to mask, cut out and superimpose the head or body, work
with the hue and saturation, levels, curves etc. Whatever it takes to match
the colours before you even start merging them. This really does make the
whole job easier.
Also, carefull selection of your source images is a must. Attention to
details like the direction of shadows, quality of light, tanned skin tones,
noise in the images etc can make or break your project.
A lot of folks make the mistake when superimposing heads of not aligning the
new head correctly, or having it either too big or too small.
This can be easily sorted by reducing teh opacity of the superimposed head,
and then playing with the alignment, position, angle and scale until the
facial features line up with the image underneath. In particular, try to
make the eyes line up, and the top lip or top row of teeth if you can see
them. This should get the head positioned in a believable and realistic
looking position.
Yuo can also correct any problems with shadows and highlights by using the
burn and dodge tools. With carefull work, you can really make the face more
or less 3-dimensional feeling, and even alter teh direction of light to
match the underlying scene.
Don't be afraid to experiment with different mask limits on the face.
Sometimes you'll have a defined chin which allows you to mask to the edge of
the face.
Sometimes the chin won't be so defined, so you'll have to extend the overlay
down onto the subjects neck or even chest.
And sometimes you can get away with feather masking the facial features
only, allowing the original face shape to form the outline, aith only the
features contained within being replaced.
It also helps if all your source images are as high-res as possible.
It's hard to give an exact blueprint because every job is different, but the
three key elements really are colour, lighting and alignment. Get those
right and you can find work-arounds for the rest.
I'm sure I will find what I'm looking for at worth1000.com. There's
some pretty awesome stuff there.
There's some pretty good tutorials on there.
Sadly however, in recent years, their contest entries have become more
concerned with the idea or interpretation of the theme rather than the
realism of the final image. As a result, some stunningly realistic, and
technically perfect images have been getting beaten by images that look like
they were done using MS Paint.
At this point I think the problem with head swapping isn't so much
lighting, color and grain (which is definitely an art unto itself) as
much as photo perspective. When dealing with Photoshop "cosmetic
surgery" and head swapping, a person knows that each picture was shot
with a different camera, using different lenses of different focal
lengths. All lens systems distort a captured image regardless of
equipment quality. Not so much because of inferior equipment (as in
the blatant pin cushioning of a $40 lens) but because you're taking a
3D world and eventually portraying it on a 2D medium of some sort.
There's also the angle and azimuth at which the photos were taken.
I think this is what mostly causes the image to look "fake" when
swapping/compositing heads. I think it's mostly a camera perspective
challenge. Would this seem to be the case to you?
I agree about the lens distortion to an extent, but to be honest it's not as
much of an issue as you would imagine.
Photoshop has a whole raft of tools to overcome lens distortion, and when
you're only working with small elements from images, the effects of lens
distortion become less relevant and much less obvious.
Good luck with your projects. I hope you'll share links to your results when
you're ready to share them with us.
.
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- From: James
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