How to change pictures?

Question

ive got pics that i want to change into spoofs ie changing faces and putting my son in different backgrounds. any tips?

i can cut around the face but soon as i click on another pic the first one goes away. i know i'm doing something wrong and it's probably simple but i just cant get my head 'round it, i'm old so type slow. many thanks.

Answer 1

Sir, I suppose it depends upon which photo package you are using.

I use MGI PhotoSuite, which allows one to manipulate photos in many ways. I make many spoofs of the type you describe, especially for Christmas and birthday cards. My latest was for a friend who liked Warwick Castle. I had taken a photo of a 'knight' in full regalia and who stood at the gate to welcome visitors. I then placed my friend's head over that of the original! This package also has many ready-made backgrounds provided for such purposes.

Some things you might try are as follows, for most photo packages.

Call up whatever photo you wish to use as a background. Then call up the photo of your son's head - whole body - or whatever. 'Lasso' the picture of your son and 'copy' it to the clipboard with Control C pressed together.

Close the picture of your son, to leave the background picture. Then press Control V together to 'paste' the picture of your son onto the background. This will probably not be in the correct position or of the correct size. Simply re-size and move the photo of your son into the position you desire. You may have to alter a few things such as colour balance and get rid of unwanted material around the edges of the composite. I assume that your photo package has tools for 'rubbing' out and 'cloning' (copying of sections).

Most packages also have 'distortion' tools. For example, I had a photo of a friend standing next to his car. I 'pulled out' his nose with a 'drag' tool, in 'Pinnochio fashion'. I added the caption, "This is the best car in the world. Honest." You can use such tools to make people look fat, thin, very tall, short and squat, etc. There should be tools for getting rid of wrinkles for older people! It's amazing that when I have given people 'enhanced' photos of themselves, they always accept them as the truth! I also often put children's faces onto animals such as lions and tigers, at their parents' requests. They love them!

There are many photo packages and other methods, but the method described is easy and works well. I would be surprised if your photopackage did not have tools and facilities similar to the ones mentioned.

Important: make sure that you save your work frequently to the folder of your choice. There is nothing worse than spending a lot of time on some processes and then having the computer 'lock up', 'crash' - or having a power cut. At least then you can call back the composite photo at the stage at which you left it.

A printing tip which might help. Don't buy expensive photo paper. Photos will print reasonably on ordinary paper but for a birthday card or for a picture to be framed, for example, I buy 'HP Superior Paper 180 Glossy' @ about £9.99 for 50 sheets. These will go through any decent printer, albeit slowly on best quality setting, but the results are fantastic! How you present the finished work is up to you e.g. folded into a card, printed at full A4 size for framing, reduced size - whatever. Before committing yourself to the 'posh' paper, do a draft quality test page on ordinary paper first.

Friends of mine who are over 80 are using these methods - and they love the results!

I hope some of this helps. At your request, I have typed slowly - and it suits me! Best wishes.