Stupid Photoshop Tricks

Photoshop skill, like any other skill, depends on a strong grasp of the fundamentals and thousands of hours of practice–but that’s no fun. Here’s a step-by-step guide to doing what you really want to do with Photoshop: Make George Bush look like Justin Bieber, swap Brad Pitt’s face with Angelina Jolie’s, and mock up a picture of your toddler terrorizing traffic.

First, we’re going to swap Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s faces with each other. Note that both faces are pointed in roughly the same direction–this will make the final image more believable.

Use the lasso tool to roughly outline Brad’s face. You might want to use a 10-pixel feather, so the skin will blend when placed on the other face.

Copy and paste the respective faces. You may have to slightly rotate and scale each face to better fit the person.

Now it’s Angelina’s turn.

You want some of Brad’s facial hair, but not all of it. Use a mask to let some of it show through Angelina’s skin.

It still looks a little rough, so use a soft brush to ensure a smooth transition from the hair to the skin.

Voila! Thanks to our modifications, they’re Hollywood’s hottest couple.

First, we have our source image of George W. Bush–and it needs a makeover.

Next is our source image of Justin Bieber, Boy Wonder. Note that both our source images are portrait shots, so it’s easier to perform image surgery.

Outline the hair with the lasso tool.

Copy and paste Justin B’s hair onto Bush’s head. You may need to scale and rotate the hair to make it fit.

Maybe he’ll use this for the cover of his next book.

For our next shot, we’re going to hold up traffic for a little bit. Here’s our source image of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Our culprit will be none other than this adorable tyke here. Use the lasso tool to outline her, and don’t forget to grab her shadow.

Paste the toddler onto the bridge photo, and use the Scale tool to get the size that you want.

You’ll want the toddler’s shadow to look a bit more convincing, so make a new layer and copy her shadow on to it. Multiply the layer and set the opacity a bit low so the shadow looks more transparent. This way, the shadow will make the image feel more real.

No giant baby attack would be complete without some collateral damage. Here’s a picture of a car that will be in the toddler’s hand.

Flip the image horizontally. This way, the car will better fit the perspective of the image as well as the hand that will be holding it. Outline the car with the lasso tool, no feather. Copy and paste into your main image.

Finally, paste the car and scale it to fit the rest of the image. Congratulations–you now have a picture of a toddler wreaking havoc on the Golden Gate Bridge.