Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual

Merging Different Faces

Merging isn't just for making panoramas anymore. One of the new tools that Elements 6 brings you is Faces, a fun (okay, let's be honest—silly) feature that lets you merge parts of one person's face with another person's face. You can use it to create caricature-like photos, or for things like pasting your new sweetie's face over your old sweetie's face in last year's holiday photo. Figure 11-5 shows an example of what Faces can do. (Elements' other new tool, Group shot, is explained later in this chapter.)

Figure 11-5. Faces is really just for fun. You can create composite images like this one, and then use the Editor's other tools to make your photo even sillier, if you like.

Although you'd be hard put to think of a serious use for Faces, it can be fun to play with, and it's quite simple to use:

1. Choose the photos to combine.

   You need to have at least two photos available in the Project bin before you start.

2. Call up the Faces feature.

   You can get to it either from File → New → Photomerge Faces, or from Guided Edit → Photomerge → Faces.

   A dialog box asks you to choose the photos you want to include. In the Project bin, Ctrl+click to select the photos you want to use, or choose Open All from the dialog box. Elements then opens the Faces window, which has a preview area on the left and an instruction pane on the right.

3. Choose a Final photo.

   This is the main photo into ...