Shawn M. Tomlinson
One of the best---and worst---things about Adobe Photoshop is the extensive tools it provides to alter reality. It can remove unwanted blemishes, unwanted telephone lines or superfluous and distracting parts of an image. The downside is this alters reality and presents a fictitious image to the world. Still, changing a body can be done. 
Removing facial hair can change a look.
Get rid of unwanted facial hair such as a beard or mustache with a combination of the Cloning tool and the Replace Color tool. First clone out the facial hair. For a beard, this can be a little tough because you need to keep changing the tone near that section of the beard. In other words, since the beard wraps around the face, it will be some in shadow and some not, some near some skin color and other parts near different skin color. Blow the photo up big so you can work on it piece by piece.
2 
Changing the background can give an entirely different look.
Change blemishes and wayward hair with the Cloning tool. To remove pimples or moles, choose the Cloning tool from the side toolbar, use the Option (Alt) key with the mouse to select an area near the area to be changed that is the same color and texture and start cloning. The same works for hair. If there is a wayward lock sticking up, select an area near the hair and clone over it.
3 
You can make a person look shorter and heavier or taller and thinner.
Fix the fat and skinny with minor stretching. Go to Layer>New Layer>Layer from background. This will allow you to manipulate the entire photo. Go to Edit>Free Transform to get a handle on the photo. With this, you can make the person taller and thinner, shorter and fatter or skew the image into a different view. For example, go to Edit>Transform>Perspective for an unusual look.
4 
Changing the coloring can change a person.
Alter the clothing. Using the Color Replacement tool, you can alter how the clothing looks by changing the color. You can add a hat or even facial hair to give the person a different look.
5 
A photo can be made to look like a painting or a sketch
Change the tone of the photo. You can change a drab scene to a light and airy scene just by going to Image>Adjustments>Levels or Variations. You also can use the Filter Gallery to give a different look to a person. To soften the image, for example, go to Diffuse Glow. To make the person look like a painting, try any of the "Brush Strokes." |