Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Merging Different Faces

Merging isn't just for making panoramas. One of the Elements-only tools that Adobe gives 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 special tools, Group Shot and Scene Cleaner, are 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.

Although you'd be hard pressed to think of a serious use for Faces (it may work for something like copying a smile from one photo to another image of the same person with a more serious expression, but the end result may not be top quality), it's fun and 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 ...