Even if you’re not a Photoshopper, you are going to want to skim through this if only for the before and afters. Stay with me, now. Here we go.

Photoshopping. It’s not just for doctoring anorexic, highly compensated, arrogant supermodels anymore.

No, I’ve come up with the next best use of Photoshopping talent. Let me paint you a picture.

Have you ever done a family portrait sitting? It’s a nightmare. A dozen shots, and in every single one, somebody’s eyes are closed, or there’s a finger up the nose, or someone’s looking for UFOs, or doing a ninja stealth karate chop, or crossing their eyes, or sticking out their tongue, or baring their teeth like a rabid Doberman, or sporting an inappropriate maniacal poop-consuming grin.

Alright; let’s get to work.

Assemble these tools: we’re gonna need a fifth of your favorite alcohol and a shot glass, a whisk, super glue, a plunger, an aardvark, a blowtorch, and a crane. You round up all those items, and let me know when you’re ready.

Juuuust kidding. But that does sound like a good project for another day.

Today, we’re going to need two photos (one’s the target and the other will be the source) and trusty, handy dandy Photoshop.

Here’s a picture of Slim (he’s the more equine of the two) and Rocky.
I like Slim’s expression, but Rocky looks ticked off.

Here’s another picture of them, but in this one, Slim has a rather unflattering face and Rocky looks pretty content.

Gosh, I sure wish I had gone to school to learn to use Photoshop and borrowed tons of money that I would be repaying for the rest of my natural life. Or at least spent the equivalent of our nation’s yearly defense budget on Photoshop text books. Which, by the way, were obsolete five minutes after the UPS guy delivered them. Oh, wait, I’ve done both of those things!

OOOoooOOOoooooo… something shiny! Wait, what? Oh. Anyway. Sorry, where was I?

Ah, Yes. Take a look at the shots and decide which will be the target and which will be the source. It’s pretty obvious that it’s going to be much quicker and less pain to decapitate and reattach Rocky’s head than Slim’s.

I grabbed the Marquee tool (shortcut ‘M’) to select Rocky’s contented expression. If you want to switch Marquee Shapes, Sh+M cycles through.

I love to use the keyboard shortcuts because it’s so much quicker than a sweep of the mouse. Wow, now that I just re-read that sentence, I realized I’m just the typical product of our gotta-have-it-now, every-millisecond-counts American culture.

ANYwaaaay… next I hit Ctrl/Cmd-C to copy the selection…

…and then switched to the other shot and hit Ctrl/Cmd-V to paste.

Alternately, you could drag and drop if you’re so inclined.

Next, I used the Move tool (shortcut ‘V’) to drag Rocky’s happy head to cover the cranky head.

With the Move tool still selected, I rotated his head to line it up with his shoulders.

Here’s a little trick to line stuff up easily…
change the Opacity to 50%, it’s hiding right under the Layers tab.

Wow, I was waaaaay off! I nudged it with my directional arrows keys.
I think I’ve got it lined up as close as it’s going to get.

I changed the Opacity back to 100%. So far so good!

Next, I grabbed the Eraser tool (shortcut ‘E’). I made the size 100 pixels, and Hardness 0% to make the edges of the brush super fuzzy.

Click the Eraser tool all around the hard edge that the selection left behind to blend it softly into the target.

I back up and take a look to make sure that it’s blended and natural…

Annndddd Tah-daaaaaah!

Imagine how less painful this year’s Christmas portrait will be!

Dory is ADD-addled, Deaf, a phenomenal wife, a bewildered mom, a fantabulous girlfriend, and an enthusiastic graphic designer, blogger, and photographer. She juggles a husband in school full-time, two sons, two cats, and a Jack Russell Terrier while heroically coping with a powerful addiction to Photoshop and Twitter. She loves to have people over at Can’t Remember Diddly! her blog casa.