swap a head from 2 almost identical photos

John Mandel

• August 15, 2019 01:15

I have 2 group photos that are almost identical but would like to swap out the head of one person from one photo to the other. Could someone please explain in detail how I might be able to do this in Photo Raw 2019.

Thank You,

John Mandel

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  Rick Sammartino Community moderator

  • August 15, 2019 01:55
  • Edited

  It's actually pretty easy.

  1. Select both photos and click Layers (not Edit). Both photos will load.
  2. Move the 'good' photo to the top if it isn't already (just drag it).
  3. Make sure the top layer is selected. Just above that layer is an opacity slider, move it down to about 50%. That makes the top (selected) layer transparent. You should be able to see the lower layer through the top one, if you need to adjust the opacity so you can see both better, do it now.
  4. Select the lower layer. Select transform from the left panel. You should be able to move the lower layer around.
  5. Align the two heads so that later when you remove one, the other will be in the correct place. You can use arrow keys for precision. When it looks right, click apply
  6. Re-select the upper layer.
  7. Set opacity back to 100%
  8. Select Mask from the left panel and make sure masking brush is selected.
  9. Set the brush to Paint Out, opacity 100% and feather is 50% or more.
  10. Now just brush over the head and the one behind should be visible in its place.
  11. If you brush too much, hold ALT and brush the mistake back in.
  12. When you go back to Browse, there will be a new onphoto file with your changes.

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  John Mandel

  • August 15, 2019 01:53

  Thank you so much.

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  Rick Sammartino Community moderator

  • August 15, 2019 01:57

  I may have made edits after you posted so check for changes. Let us know how it goes.

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  John Mandel

  • August 15, 2019 02:17

  I couldn't line everything up. It is a group photo & there was little more movement than I thought between the two shots. Thanks anyway

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  Rick Sammartino Community moderator

  • August 15, 2019 02:53

  You only need to line up the head, not the whole group. If you want to post the pix here I can see if there is a way to do it.

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  John Mandel

  • August 15, 2019 03:04

  how do I post the pix

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  Rick Sammartino Community moderator

  • August 15, 2019 17:28

  This forum limits photos to 2mb.So you could just reduce them both. As long as they are under 2mb you should be able to drop them here. I can take a look at those and if I have a solution, you can try it on the full sized images yourself.

  Optionally, you could post them somewhere that they could be uploaded and you can paste a link to them here.

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  John Mandel

  • August 15, 2019 19:19

  

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  John Mandel

  • August 15, 2019 19:21

  I wanted to use the boys head from the bottom photo on the top photo.

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  Rick Sammartino Community moderator

  • August 15, 2019 20:33
  • Edited

  Ok, I'll give it a shot....

  Since his hands are in the way, you need to merge those as well. The 'good face' photo is a bit smaller than the 'good family' photo, when in transform (step 4&5 above) you need to adjust the size of the lower boy to match the size of the upper one. To do that just grab a corner of the transform and move it out till he looks right.

  This is what my masking looks like...

  

  This is the two merged together...

  

   

   

   

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  Rick Sammartino Community moderator

  • August 15, 2019 20:46
  • Edited

  I don't know if this will help. It's both layers with the top at 50%. You can see how mismatched they are, but you only need to get the boy aligned to make it work.

   

  

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  John Mandel

  • August 15, 2019 23:48

  Amazing!! Thank you so much.

  Best,

  John

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