I'm trying to replace a head in a family photo, and as I don't have a lot of practice at that kind of task, I'm having trouble making it look realistic. Out of a series of ~10 shots, this was the best of the family, but the baby was never looking at the camera in any of them. So I'm trying to take her head from a photo that was taken about a minute later in the same location, so roughly the same lighting. Zoom is different, so I scaled her head, but maybe the change in perspective makes it more difficult too.
I'd like some help with this, and have added links to the two original raw files at the bottom if anyone wants to play around.
Anyway, here is my attempt. I developed the family shot in Lightroom, and synced the develop settings to the shot I took the head from. I scaled the head down to try and match size, and also adjusted brightness using curves and a layer mask to try to more closely match the lighting. It looks off to me, but I can't quite figure out what is wrong or what to do: http://bc-sebastian.com/forum/family/12-1638_crop2.jpg
The human body is not just a collection of parts, so the pasted head may not look anatomically correct. It looks reasonable to me, but the question is whether it looks good enough to the viewers. I might tilt the head a bit more to the left.
If you hadn't mentioned that the baby's head was replaced, I don't think I would have picked up on it. Even knowing that the head was replaced, it still isn't obvious, and I'm willing to bet that most people wouldn't notice. I think you did a great job.
I do this sort of thing with group shots all the time, especially when kids are involved.
Your results are fine. The only thing I might do differently is let the baby's collar wrap around the face a bit and maybe get rid of the shadow behind its head (below the mother's neck).
I also couldn't tell what you had done and the only ones that might notice something would be your family/friends. Good job! I replaced my first head in photoshop last week. With baby/toddler pics I keep snapping pics of the same basic pose while people blink, stop smiling, look around, frown, etc. I don't delete any of them. At home I will look through for my main photo and then a photo with a suitable head donor. Sounds like you had a tough time with the baby cooperating for you but you still had a good head lying around somewhere at home!
I noticed it when you pointed it out. I think one thing is that it's a little too sharp (probably due to the closer zoom of the original, so maybe a very slight softening. Also, the shadow from the mom's arm isn't there on her face, and it is in the original.
It is a good spot the difference puzzle, but nothing anyone would notice. Good photo. Don't give up your secrets to anyone but us. They'll say you always get the best family photos!
Thanks for all the input from everyone. I took the advice from Ho1972 and let the shirt color show a little in front of the chin and removed the shadow behind the head that I accidentally left in. I'm calling it good with these updates, and it's ready for printing.
Jman13 - I thought the same thing about the sharpness when I first started working on the head replacement. I actually did a very slight gausian blur on the head. You can't tell from the images above, but at 100% the baby's head is actually a little softer than everyone else in the picture.
Well, if that's the case, it's probably more a global contrast thing. Have you reduced the contrast on the head a little bit. We're not talking big changes...just a little.
