Impossible Creature

Let’s take a moment and discuss a few things about our two images:

● Notice that the animals are similar in color. While this is not necessary for this lesson to be a success (later in the lesson we will discuss how to deal with variations in hue between your parts, or even how to take an object that is one color and tint it another), it makes things much easier on you in the end.

● Notice that we are using two images with solid backgrounds. Again, this is not entirely necessary but it makes things easier both when we are selecting our body parts and when we are making the replacement.

● Notice that we have one animal with feathers and the other with fur, but that our rabbit’s fur is very close to its body and not hanging far away, which would make it difficult to get a clean selection. We could certainly use an animal with no body covering (like an elephant) along with our parrot, but that would make the transition between the two animals much more difficult to smooth out.

● Notice that the heads of our two animals are in similar positions. This is crucial in getting our pieces to fit together cleanly.

Keep all of these things in mind when you are choosing your images for your custom animal later as following the suggestions above will make your life much easier.

Let’s Begin

1. Go to your Principles folder>Graphic Design folder>Photoshop folder; then create a New

Folder titled Impossible Creature

2. Open Google Classroom and download the the ic-parrot and ic-rabbit files

3. Move the parrot and rabbit files to your new Impossible Creature folder

4. Open Photoshop

5. Click File > Open

6. Navigate to your Impossible Creature folder and open the parrot file

7. Save the parrot file as LastName Impossible Creature

8. Click File > Open again and open the rabbit file

Make a Selection

9. Click the Magnetic Lasso tool (it might be hiding under the Lasso Tool)

10.Click once at the tip of the rabbit’s ear and then SLOWLY drag down

and around the head…

Don’t worry about getting every little piece of it as we will fix any selection error in just a

second; also don’t worry about his whiskers (we will add them back in later)

11.When you have gone all the way around click back on the spot you started, your rabbit

should now be selected…

12.Click the Lasso Tool

13.Zoom in to 500% and move to the rabbit’s nose

14.Start at his nose and work your way around the outline of the rabbit to add or subtract

from the selection as needed

a. Hold the Shift key to add to your selection, notice the (+) sign that appears when

you press Shift

b. Hold the Alt/Option key to subtract from your selection, notice the (-) sign

15.Press Control+0 to zoom to fit on screen

16.When finished you should have an accurate outline…

Notice that I did not include the small flap of his back ear that is visible – it does not

matter if you include it or not, I just think it makes for a cleaner selection to leave it out but

if you like it then leave it in; also notice that I did not get precise at all with his neck – this

was done on purpose as we will need some neck hair to blend in with the parrot’s feathers

later on

Move a Layer

17.Click the Move Tool

18.Click and drag the rabbit head to the top of the screen where you see the file tabs…

19.Hold it over the parrot file until the file opens…

20.Keep holding down the mouse and drag your cursor down into the parrot image, then let

go

21.In the Layers panel, double-click on the words Layer 1 and change the name to Rabbit

22.Use the Move Tool to click and drag the rabbit head so that it sits over the parrot’s

head…

23.Click File > Save As

a. Save As: LastName Impossible

b. Where: Photoshop folder

c. Format: Photoshop

d. Click Save

Transform a Layer

24.Press Control+T to transform. This brings up a box with “handles” that you can use to

change the size and rotation of the rabbit’s head.

25.In the Options bar, find the Rotation setting and change it to -9 and hit Enter

You can also use the Handles to rotate if you place your cursor just outside the transform box,

when the cursor turns into a double-headed curved arrow click and drag either direction

to make the layer rotate.

26.Press Enter to apply the transform

27.Press Control+T to transform.

28.Hold the Shift key (this will force Photoshop to increase the

width and height of the selection at the same time and in the

same proportion) while clicking and dragging one of the corner

resize handles, look at the options bar and resize the rabbit’s

head to around 115%. If you can’t get it exact, get it close then go to the options bar, click

the Maintain Aspect Ratio button and change one of the percentages to 115%.

Notice that the other one changes too. The Maintain Aspect Ratio button functions the

same as holding the Shift key to transform.

29.Press Enter to apply the transform

30.Click the Move Tool

31.In the Layers Panel, Find the Opacity: 100% change it to 75%

32.Click and drag on the rabbit’s head to line up the rabbit and parrot eyes

Change the Opacity back to 100%

33.Let’s deal with the fact that we can still see the parrot’s head – zoom in to 175% and move

to the parrot’s beak…

Add New Brushes

34.Click the Brush Tool

35.In the Options Bar, click the small down arrow next

to the brush size

36.In the brush options, click on the gear in the top

right corner and select Round Brushes with Size

------->

37.Click Append

38.Scroll down in the brush options and choose the

Soft Round 35 Pixel Brush (if you hover your

mouse over the brushes it with tell you the name)

Clone Stamp Tool

39.Click on the Background Layer in the Layers Panel

40.Click the Clone Stamp Tool

41.Zoom to 250%

42.Press and hold the Alt key then click in the sky just off the parrot’s nose then release both

buttons, then click on the parrot’s beak…

Notice that Photoshop covers up the beak with blue – it is actually pulling colors from

where you Alt+clicked and copying them to where you are clicking and dragging

Then click

Alt+Click

43.Repeat this process until you can no longer see the parrot’s beak – you will have to

Alt+click multiple times to resample different areas until you have everything removed…

Eraser Tool

44.In the Layers Panel, click on the Rabbit layer to make it active

45.Zoom in to 250% on the rabbit’s nose and mouth

46.Click the Eraser Tool and change the brush to Soft Round 13 pixels

47.Notice in the image to the right that my rabbit has multiple areas

where you can see unnecessary color, such as the white that is visible

in many areas and the green that is left over from the lettuce that was

in the rabbit’s mouth (your rabbit will have different areas as your selection was different

from mine)…

Use the Eraser Tool to remove these areas of extraneous (if you don’t know what that

means, www.dictionary.com) color – you should end up with something like that ----->

** Remember to use your Bracket keys [ & ] to change the size of your brush if needed

Notice that the areas that we worked on now appear much

smoother and blend in much better with the background (also notice

that the bottom lip still has a rather sharp edge on it, hang on, we

are getting to that)

48.Keep using the Eraser Tool to work around the entire head

removing unnecessary color and smoothing out the edge

49.At the rabbit’s neck, erase any extra fur down to the parrots neck

At this point image should look like this

Image Adjustments

50.Click Image then point at Adjustments and click Levels to open the Levels window

51.Click and drag the gray arrow under the Input Levels section to the left; you do not have to

move it far – to about 1.20 will work best…

52.Click OK

Layer via Copy

53.In the Layers Panel, make the Background layer active

54.Click the eye symbol next to the Rabbit Layer to turn it off

55.Zoom in to 150%

56.Click the Quick Selection Tool

57.Use the Quick Selection Tool to select the parrot’s neck…

58.Click the Refine Edge button on the Options bar

59.Set the Feather option to 5px…

60.Press Control and click, inside the selection to see the context menu

61.Click on Layer via copy

62.Double-click on Layer 1 name and change it to Feathers

63.Click and drag the Feathers layer above the Rabbit layer

64.Decrease the Opacity of this new layer to 50%...

Clone Stamp & Blend

65.Click the Clone Stamp Tool to extend the neck feathers to the edge of the rabbit’s neck…

66.Change the size to 35

67.Hold Alt and click in the feathers to pick up the pattern, then click and drag on the rabbit’s

neck to fill in the feathers

68.Use the Eraser Tool with a soft round brush, size 90 to remove any extra feathers over your

rabbit’s face or any solid edges that may be visible…

so that you have something like this…

69.Click on the Rabbit layer in the Layers panel and use the Eraser to erase the rabbits fur

around the neck and shoulders to blend with the parrot’s feathers.

The Pen Tool

70.Zoom in to 250% on the rabbit’s face from his mouth to where his ear leaves his head

71.Create a new layer by clicking the Create new layer icon on the Layers palette…

72.Rename the layer Whiskers

73.Click the Eyedropper Tool then point at the rabbit’s cheek and click – notice that

your Foreground color now matches the color in the spot you clicked

74.Click the Brush Tool and change the Brush Size to 2 px and Hardness 50%

75.Click the Pen Tool

76.Click at the end of one of the whiskers to drop an anchor point, and then move off the

rabbit’s head and click and drag to place another point and create a curved whisker

between the two points…

You should now have a line similar to the image above

77.Control+click on your image to bring up the following menu…

78.Click Stroke Path… to bring up the Stroke Path window…

79.Click the drop-down arrow and choose Brush (if it is not already selected) and make sure

the Simulate Pressure box is checked (as in the image above)

80.Click OK or press Enter

81.Press Enter to remove the path, which should leave you with just your image and a nice

new whisker…

82.Repeat the above process until you have given him a nice set of replacement whiskers…

You can open the original rabbit image and try to reproduce the whiskers if you wish, or

you can just add them in wherever you like

83.Reduce the Opacity of the whisker layer to 60% to thin them out

84.Press Control+0 to zoom out

Our impossible creature is complete:

85.Control+S to save

86.File > Save As

87. Be sure the name is LastName Impossible

88. Change the Format to JPEG and click Save

89. Upload the both before pictures of the parrot and the rabbit. Then post the new .jpg

version of your project. Summarize what tools that you have use and what they do in

your blog in order to receive full credit.

With a little more work we can do all kinds of things to our creature…for example, we could

give him rhinoceros legs, a cat eye, and put a carrot shaped worm in his mouth...

But I think we have tortured him enough, time to move on.

Your Turn

Now that you know how to use the tools and techniques to create this type of image, your job

is to create a custom image of your own. Search the Web and find two LARGE animal images

– one to use as the body and another to use as the head. Use the tools you learned in this

lesson and put together a creative, unique impossible creature. Save your custom scene as

LastName Impossible 2.PSD in your Photoshop Work folder. Once completed, turn in the JPEG

version of your custom image to Google Drive > Assignment folder > Photoshop Turn In>

Impossible 2 folder.

Some Examples