#manip tutorial

Apps I use: Picsart and Snapseed (both are free)

The secret to a good manip is couple pictures, e.g. your FCs next to another person and I just overlay their face, which makes it easier.

Step 1: I search through Pinterest or instagram to collect the pictures I want to use. I try finding pictures that are somewhat similar in lighting, although this isn’t too important since that can be fixed later using Snapseed.

Step 2: Open Picsart and the main picture you’ll be using. In tools, choose clone. From here, you’ll be erasing part of or the entire face of the person where you’ll be editing your FCs face over. This is so no part of the other person’s face shows.

Step 3: Next you’re going to click on add photo to edit in your FCs face. This is optional, but you can edit the lighting so it’s similar to the other picture by clicking adjust and messing around with the settings there. This can be skipped though since the same can be done later in snapseed. From there you’ll click cutout to cut around the face, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You can flip the picture under crop if you need to, like I did here.

Step 3: Adjust the size and move it around where you’d like the face to be. From there, click on the eraser at the top. Now you’re going to be erasing around the face. Lowering the hardness prevents it from having a superimposed look.

Step 4: Resize the picture, movie it around, and use the eraser tool until you’re satisfied with how it looks. If there are any imperfections, such as part of the og picture’s face showing a bit, like my example, use the clone tool again to erase it. But this can also be done in Snapseed using the healing tool as well, so it’s not often necessary. Now feel free to click apply and the download button at the top to save your picture.

Step 5: Open Snapseed, choose your newly edited picture and click on selective under tools. This is where you’ll be fixing the lighting. The picture of Aimee was taken indoors, making it darker than the one of Tom, which was taken outdoors. In order to fix this, click on either face and mess around with the settings as you see fit. Feel free to use this in any part of the picture to your satisfaction. Snapseed is my fave editing app with many useful tools to explore!

And there it is! If neither of these apps are available for you, look for any other apps that provide similar tools to these. Like I said, the secret is finding the right pictures and simply superimposing your fc’s face!

note: this is how i learned how to do this and it’s the easiest way for me. feel free to add/change my steps as you use this tutorial.

to start off, you want to gather images. for me, this is the hardest and most crucial step because i’m super picky when i want to make my edits look as realistic as possible. on this particular edit, i searched on google for canon star wars character posters, pngs, and screencaps until i found one i liked for the outfit i picture my oc to wear. same goes for my image of rosa salazar, the bd droid, and the lightsaber ( originally blue ).

here are all the images i used for this edit!

now that you have all of your images, open photoshop. i use cc, but if you have any program that allows you to erase, paint, free transform, and add multiple layers, then you can recreate this!

once ps is open, create a blank, black canvas. my crop size is 268x171 and the image size is 900x575 pixels. then, start masking/erasing your photos to make pngs. you can use an eraser for this ( add a layer mask beforehand so you can fix your mistakes!!!! ), but i used my quick selection tool instead bc it’s faster and i’m lazy. here’s a great tutorial for anyone who doesn’t know how to use the quick selection tool!

this is how my image looked like when i kept the parts i wanted for the outfit:

now, the tricky part, adding another head on top of that. luckily, the picture i chose for rosa worked when i flipped the image horizontally, titled the head with free transform, and erased until i could get it as realistic as possible.

whenever creating a manip such as this, be sure to adjust the different colorings, brightness/contrast, etc. to make things easier, use your “option” key on a layer so it only affects that one layer and not the whole image ( sad to say i only learned that recently but moving on. )

then i added the rest of the images such as the droid and the lightsaber which i colored purple by using selective color and hue/saturation layers.

now the fun part, p a i n t i n g. i admit, it can be tricky when you have no idea what to do with it. as long as you play around with it and have fun, it’ll look good in the end! start by creating two new layers. place one underneath all of your layers and one on top.

then i use the paint color and select a purple to use since purple is color i want to focus. after that, i change the paintbrush mode to either screen or overlay ( i used both, depending on what and where i was painting ) and changed the opacity so i can build up the color. when they say less is always more, it’s really true. also i used black too in case i added too much purple to my liking.

you can add multiple layers when painting so you don’t accidentally mess up when using multiple colors. this is what my layers looked like when i was content.

i know some are barely visible but i promise, all of the layers have paint on them. 

after this, there isn’t much to do. add on some lighting/distressed overlays to give more texture, add text, any psd you chose, adjust with brightness, saturation, etc. if needed, and boom! you have your very own manip of your oc with a lightsaber!

so first thing’s first, in order to make a manip gif, you’ll need two gifs (duh). here’s three things i always try to make sure they have in common:

similar backgrounds

similar lighting (it’s really hard to manip together a night scene with one that’s in like a school room haha)

low movement (i.e. camera zooms, movement from the character themselves -- like avoiding someone running or jumping or twirling or just generally moving a lot) 

now, as for how i made that gif....

first, make the two gifs you want to blend together. sharpen them, adjust your number of frames (make sure both gifs have the same number of frames!) and all that jazz. don’t worry about coloring (that’ll be done at the end) or sizing them correctly (you’ll need to adjust the size when putting them together) 

here are my two gifs that i’m working with: 

you’ll notice that they’re not colored, their sizes are different and the frame delay is different too and that’s okay! we’ll fix it all hehe

next, go into one of the gifs and select all the frames + layers and group them using that little folder button that’s on the right hand side where the layers are: 

^that dude. it’ll make it easier when you need to erase the layers or move it around. 

then, go into the second gif you’re working with and select all the frames and copy them.

then you’re gonna want to go over to your first gif and paste the frames from the second gif OVER THE SELECTION OF ALL THE FRAMES IN THE FIRST

then your first gif is gonna look something like this:

(notice how i grouped all the layers from the second gif into a group too!) and don’t worry about how big it is over the first gif! you can use the MOVE tool to adjust the size! usually i make it as small or as big as the first gif just as a base, but will then continue to adjust once i begin to erase some of the background or other people. 

much better.

then comes the fun part! overlaying your gif! take GROUP TWO (the gif you pasted over the first) and choose from the drop down menu on the right hand side where your layers (now sectioned into groups) are! usually, i choose the SCREEN option but you can flick through and choose whichever one looks best to you!  

so now we have something like this: 

again, not great but we will fix it!! let’s continue! 

okay! so now it’s all about using your MOVE tool and your ERASER tool to help move your gifs around so they line up and to get rid of any unwanted lurkers in the background (sorry ned and steve) 

all you need to do if you want to move one of the gifs, is select the tool, then the group that coincides with the gif and move it! 

!!! JUST REMEMBER IF YOU’RE GOING TO MOVE EITHER ONE OF THE GIFS MAKE SURE ALL YOUR FRAMES ARE SELECTED OR ELSE IT’S GONNA END UP LIKE THIS:  

in order to erase the background, you’ll have to apply a MASK to your group which is the little button on the right hand side where the layers are that looks like this: 

apply that to both your groups and then you can use your eraser tool! i usually have mine set to 0% hardness and between 74% to 51% opacity or lower while erasing cause then it doesn’t give as hard of lines and gives it a nice softness to it -- if that makes sense... anyway erase away any unnecessary background you don’t want or anything like that! just make sure you always have all the frames selected and the mask of the specific group! 

then once you have everything erased that you want to be erased and have moved the gifs where you want them to be moved, play your gif once or twice through to make sure it looks how you want it to be! 

(i’m a dumbass and forgot to save one without the coloring on it before closing photoshop so this doesn’t match the final product but you get the point) 

finally, add your coloring! of course, you’ll want to make sure you color the gifs so that they’re somewhat similar. (it can be hard since a lot of things use different lightings, base colorings etc. etc.) but do your best! and if you think it looks nice, then it looks nice!  

resize the gif to the proper dimensions, change the frame delay so it’s not super fast or super slow and save it! 

there you have it! a manip gif!

if you made it through this whole thing, i appreciate you! i hope this long ass tutorial has been helpful to you lol and if you have any other questions or need help with anything else, PLEASE SEND ME AN ASK! i’m pretty self-taught in this whole thing, but i can try to help as best i can -- we can figure it out together!

Selecting Your Images:

To select my images I usually just do a quick google image search of whom I am looking for. In this case, I was looking for images of Ryan Gosling and Lyndsy Fonseca.

Typically, I use a select range of different phrases when looking for photos as follows:

“Celebrity name” party

“Celebrity name” after party

“Celebrity name” event

“Celebrity name” candid

“Celebrity name” night candid

As shown in the above picture, this time around I searched “Ryan gosling after party” to get the image that I will be using for this manip. Once you have entered the keywords which you are looking for into google images, hit the tools button, select any color and choose black. The reason which I recommend doing this is because it is typically easier to manip and play around with images that have a dark background for blending and erasing purposes.

From my Google Searches I have selected the following images which we will be using in this tutorial:

Creating The Manip:

1. Start off with a new blank canvas and use the paint bucket tool to fill it in black. To start off I typically use a 500x600 pixel canvas.

2. Copy and paste your first image into Photoshop. Resize and position it how you please on your canvas. You can resize and play around with your image by keeping the image proportions in tact if you hold down the shift key on your keyboard whilst drag the corners of the images as highlighted by the red circles.

3. Copy and paste your second image onto the same canvas. The following red circle highlights a drop down menu.

If you click on that drop down menu you should get a list that looks like this:

Select lighten and your canvas should now look like this:

You should now be able to move your layers around and resize images to decide where you want them to be the same way I explained above when playing around with Ryan’s layer. For example, in this situation after I lightened Lyndsy’s layer I then went to make her image smaller and positioned her next to Ryan Gosling like so:

I also used this opportunity to decide which image I wanted “on top.” In this case, I decided to keep it as Lyndsy’s layer in the main foreground.

4. Now the erasing begins. I usually start off with a slightly larger brush to begin with-- usually with a size around 70px and a hardness of 100%. With your top image still lightened, begin erasing the area which you want deleted. E.g, since I wanted Ryan Gosling in this image I erased the area where Noah Bean was in Lyndsy’s photograph like so:

I also decided whilst erasing that I wanted to resize Lyndsy’s layer a little bit and crop the image down to size. Don’t be afraid to do so and make adjustments as you go as you can always ctrl z you’re mistakes.

5. Once you’ve erased enough to get a clearish image of what your end product will look like, use the drop down menu again to make all layers “normal” once again and continue erasing.

I recommend zooming in and slowly making your brush size smaller and smaller as you go to get around all those hard to reach nooks and crannies -- for example, Ryan’s hair.

Also don’t be afraid to erase the background’s of images if they are not working for you. In this case, I erased much of Ryan’s background and a good amount of Lyndsy’s too as they did not blend well together. For some images, they’ll blend in effortlessly-- other’s you will need to erase. This this case, I erased both their backgrounds and used our original black base as the background for this manip.

6. Once you’re finished your erasing you should be left with something that looks like this! Well done, you’ve made yourself a manip! But next we need to edit the picture a little more to make sure both layers match up and look the same. Or at least, close enough to perfect as possible.

7. For each image layer you’re going to want to play around with the colouring to make the image look as seamless as possible. Select a layer then go to Image >> Adjustments >> Color Balance.

Clicking color balance will bring up a box like this. Just play around with the little slider bars until the colors of your images begin to look relatively similar. And don’t be afraid to go back and forth on both of the images, adjusting each one several times to get it as close as you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it looks close enough-- a good PSD will help you out with this later.

8. I also would recommend sharpening your layers as some images may look softer/harder than others. To do this select a layer, click filter >> sharpen >> sharpen. Then repeat with the other layer if you think it needs sharpening too.

9. Now we will merge the two images together so that instead of having two separate layers it becomes one. Open the layer menu and click flatten image. And boom~ there you have it! A completed manip.

Optional Steps:

10. Auto Tone, Auto Contract and Auto Color occasionally work well depending on your image. In this case I applied all three of them. Sometimes I don’t apply any of those filters at all, while in other cases I may use one of two so it’s really up to you and how you perceive it to be.

PSD’S:

11. PSD’s are a great way to help with coloring and a good PSD will help you to hide the imperfections in your manip. There are 3 PSD’s that I use-- unfortunately, I only have links to 2 out of the 3 but I will link them here and here.

I usually just play around with the layers and adjustments in order to achieve the outcome I want. Sometimes, I will also use multiple PSD’s on top of each other to achieve the desired effect that I want. 

Unfortunately, I do not have the links to the PSD’s which I used in this case but the outcome I ended up with was this as my completed manip:

pre-tutorial notes:  just as an FYI, there are several different ways you can crop people out of pictures in PS; you can use the lasso tool freehand, the polygon lasso tool with individual lines, the magic wand tool to select and delete certain sections of a photo, or even the quick selection tool.  Today, I will be using the Lasso tool to crop out the general shape of Alice, and then i will go back in with the eraser to get out any extra edges, or soften up parts like her hair, to make her look more realistic.  Let’s get started !

Step 1: first, open up both of the images you are working with, of your two characters.  In this case, I have an image of Tarrant Hightopp, as well as a separate picture of Alice Kingsleigh.  They are each in their own document tab as you can see in the image below(circled):

Step 2: Since I will be cropping Alice out of her picture, and putting her onto the picture of Tarrant - we only will need to crop her out; and not edit the picture of him.  But - before we do any cropping out, make sure your layers aren’t locked!  Sometimes when you open an image, the layer will be locked, preventing you from doing certain things to it.  All you have to do to change this is to click the little lock icon, and it should go away.  Look at my screen below:

Step 3: Now it’s time to crop!  Again, as I said above, I’ll be using the lasso tool to crop Alice out of her picture.  Basically, you just click+drag with the lasso tool, around the person’s whole shape, and then let go; and you’ve got a selection of them.  (Make sure you don’t let go too soon !  You’ll end up cutting the person essentially in half !)  If it’s easier for you - you can also select bits of the background around your person, and delete those as you go, to crop the figure out.  Here’s my screen, as i select Alice:

Step 4: Now, once you’ve got your selection - there are a couple of things you can do.  You can either mask your image with that selection; OR you can delete the background around the person.  Masking is a bit more safe - because if you make a mistake, you can always remove, or add more of the original photo back in - however sometimes it doesn’t matter, and i just like to delete the background.  The first gif below shows you how I delete the background (by right-clicking & inverting the selection, and hitting the delete key); whereas the second gif shows you how I mask my image selection(hitting the icon at the bottom panel, underneath the layers).  Whichever method you choose is up to you!

Step 5: At this point, you’ve got your character cropped.  There may be some harsh edges still, but don’t worry about that yet - we’ll clean that up soon enough.  What I tend to do now, is move my character into the other picture; and get them positioned correctly before fixing the edges.  To do this, I select the picture of Tarrant, and then drag the document tab of Alice’s Picture, over the picture im on.  Then I click-drag the picture of Alice into the picture of Tarrant.  I know it’s confusing, but try using this gif as a reference:

Step 6: So now we’ve finally got both images in the same document !  Here, i usually adjust the sizing of each character to make sure they look the same height, as well as their positions, etc.  When that’s all settled, it’s time to fix the edges !  You can use the lasso tool again to take out bits of the edges, or you can do what I like - which is using the eraser tool!  I like the eraser because you can change how soft or hard the eraser is, as well as the opacity.  It’s nice for making softer edges around the hair, and harsher ones around fabrics, or body angles.  The below image is just an upclose shot of me erasing the edge around Alice’s hair:

Step 7: After all the edges are properly erased, zoom out, and look at your full picture.  Does it look perfect?  Is anything odd, or out of place?  For me, when I zoomed out, I felt that Alice needed a shadow behind her.  This is obviously optional, and you can do this several ways - but I added some slight shading behind her and here was the result:

Step 8: Now you have a complete manip!  If you are me, usually im making manips for edits and what not - so I’d go in here and add a psd or filter over the image - but that’s really all there is to it!  I hope this helped you guys out, and if you have any questions, feel free to send them to me IM, or in my ask box !  ♥︎ - Jess