Advanced' Photo Effects Tutorials

Ok - So first my idea. The idea I had was the "decision pet"; i thought if one day a mad scientist wanted a pet but couldn't decide between a cat or dog he would probably create a 2-in-1 combo! So from there i went in search of a good source image>>>

I went to my address bar and typed in sxc.hu and went a-searching. I came across this sad looking pug - perfect!

It has the right mood and a great angle for dog making it easier to work with and manipulate.

I also had to look for a cat source..something with a similar angle was what I was in search of...and I came to this one and thought it perfect.


Now that I had my important sources I set to work manipulating.

Now that I had my sources I cut and rotated the cat's head to line up with the dog's head. Using the eye as a good anchor point insures a correct alignment. If it looks wrong you will need to manipulate further and using the perspective adjustments to fix the angle of the 'face'.

Next I masked out the area of the cats head I didn't want, and kept in mind the parts I wanted to add stitches to later on.

Using the clone tool, clone the background floor boards to get rid of the dog's ear...we don't need that!

We can already see our 'pet' coming to life! (keep in mind the cats head is not at 100% opacity just so you guys can see the fit..)

Should probably mention I also played around with the dog collar...its meant to appear to be two piece of metal joined together to emphasise the 2-in-1 concept. That wasn't hard to do at all I'm sure you can figure that part out.

I then added my first lot of stitching to the little critters face simply by using the paintbrush and layer effects to add a simple shadow...here is a close up>>>

By following similar steps to find a leg and tail and mainpulating the colours and shadows you can complete your franken pet! Thanks for reading my tutorial..it is my first one!