Getting a Nose Job
Not everyone can be a plastic surgeon, but with Photoshop you don’t need to go to medical school in order to perform a few nips and tucks. The following steps describe how to make a nose smaller, but you could use these steps for many body parts. All you have to do is select the area you want to change and then use one of the transformation commands, such as Distort, Skew, or Perspective, to reshape the selected area. After that, any mismatched shadows or areas can be deftly corrected using the Healing Brush.To slim down a nose, follow these steps:
Open the photograph you want to use.
Use the Lasso tool to loosely select around the nose area, as shown in Figure 31-5.
Figure 31-5: Select a wide area around the nose.
Choose Layer>New>Layer via Copy or press Ctrl/z+J.A copy of the nose area appears on a new layer above the original image, as shown in Figure 31-6. Rename the layer, if you want. For this example, I renamed my copied layer Nose Job.
Figure 31-6: A copy of the nose area appears on a new layer.
With the copied nose layer selected, choose Edit>Transform>Distort.A bounding box with handles appears around the copied nose layer, as shown in Figure 31-7.
Figure 31-7: A bounding box appears around the layer you’re going to modify.
Drag the upper corner handles toward each other to make the top of the nose slimmer.Don’t drag the handles too far or the nose ends up looking out of place.
Drag the lower corner handles to reshape the lower portion of the nose.As you drag, be aware of the surrounding face area. Try to line up shadows and skin texture as best as you can.
Click the Commit Transform button on the Options bar or press Enter/Return to apply the changes to the copied nose layer.After the nose is reshaped, mismatched shadows and extra bits of nose may show from the layer underneath, as shown in Figure 31-8.
Figure 31-8: After altering the shape of the copied nose, a few creases and shadows may need fixing.
Select the Healing Brush from the Toolbox.
Use the Options bar to select Healing Brush settings.Select Replace blending mode using the Mode drop-down list, set Source to Sampled, uncheck Aligned, and check Use All Layers.
Select a small, soft brush using the Brush Preset picker.For this example, I used a 5 pixel diameter brush with a 10% Hardness setting.
Hold down the Alt/Option key and select a clone source near an area that needs fixing, such as a shadow.
Use small strokes to remove the wrinkles.As shown in Figure 31-9, the man in the photograph isn’t so sure about his new nose. (I also removed the blemish on his chin and a few wrinkles.)
Figure 31-9: Performing a virtual nose job is really painless.