Photoshop Tutorial on Adding People into a Photo

There are many means to accomplish the same end with Photoshop, so this is not the only way to do this. A friend discovered, too late, that several people weren't included in this group photo of her wedding.

The people circled below needed to be placed into the photo above. A brief overview of the process follows, with more detailed instructions below.

To start, I needed to separate the main group from the background and put the main group onto a layer in front of the background. Detailed instructions will follow, but here is the result of that first layer, which was placed above the background layer so that the inserted people could be sandwiched in between.

Below are the "cutouts" of the people who needed to be inserted in between the top layer and the background layer.

Below is the result, but it turned out there were MORE people who needed to be added. The nuts and bolts of the actual process follow.

The people below also needed to be added to the photo above. The image wasn't large enough to fit them in! So, the first thing needed was to widen the image to make room for them.

With the background image open, I clicked Image > Canvas Size to bring up the Canvas Size box. I added to the width, keeping the image centered, because I needed to add people on both ends. Clicking on the Anchor box aligns your original image as needed. If you only needed to add a person to the right, for example, click the left arrow in order to add the new space to the right of your background. If you don't get it right the first time, click Edit > Undo and try again.

Using the clone stamp tool, I filled in the white areas of the extended canvas with background color. Brush size may need to be adjusted, as necessary.

The results of the extended canvas weren't perfect, but I decided to touch it up later on, after the people were in there.... Save this image for now and get on to tracing out the people who will be inserted into it.

I used the pen tool to select the people to be added. Other tools could also be used, such as the lasso, but the pen tool is the most accurate and well worth learning how to use (although it would take another tutorial to teach it). However, if the pen tool frustrates you because you don't have time to learn how to use it and you may never do something like this again, try the polygonal lasso tool, which would be my second choice. These instructions are for the pen tool. Be sure to click on the circled boxes to get started.

As soon as you start tracing your image, click on the Paths tab in the Layers palette and double click on the path to give it a name. The default name of 'Path 1' is fine, then click OK. This step is necessary so that you don't lose your work! Once you've finished tracing your image, click on the dotted circle on the bottom of the Path palette to select your traced image. You will see the 'crawling ants' going around it when it is selected. Go to the menu bar and click Edit > Copy. If, by some chance, your 'crawling ants' are going around the outside of the image, instead of the people you have traced, and if the outline in your Path menu is reversed from what is shown below, you'll need to click Select > Inverse in order to copy your selection to the clipboard. (It is a common error. I've made it more times than I want to recall!) Now, paste this image into a new file and save it.

Using the same method as used above, trace out the people in the background image that you will be placing the new people into. Copy and paste into a new layer on the background image, so that you can 'sandwich' the people you want to add in back of the cutout and in front of the background.

Add a new layer to the background image by clicking on the 'create a new layer' icon (circled below). Then paste your selection of the people you want to add, which should already on your clipboard if you copied it, into the new layer after clicking on the new layer to highlight it (Edit > Paste). Don't forget to keep saving your work! If you're using a computer with limited RAM and/or hard drive space, you may run into problems when doing intensive graphics, so you need to keep saving your work in case you need to restart. Restarting will free up your RAM and allow you to continue working if you run into memory or disk space error messages, but if you haven't saved your work, you'll have to start all over again. Ouch! Save, save, save... Make it a habit. You can move the layers around by dragging them up or down, until it looks right. You may need to resize them, to make it look right. To do that, be sure the layer they are on is selected, then click Edit > Transform > Scale and grap one of the corner boxes to resize. Don't forget to hit the Return/Enter key once you have it to the right size. Save!

The image is now on a layer behind the people in front and in front of the background. However, part of her dress and one of her feet is missing, because I had to cut around the wedding gown. The clone stamp to fill in the missing dress area and a tracing of the shoe with a copy paste, and then maneuvering it next to the other shoe and playing around with Edit > Transform > Scale and Edit > Transform > Rotate got it to look real. It isn't easy being a magician!

This process was repeated for the people who needed to be added to the right of the group. Also, it helps to adjust levels (Image > Adjustment > Levels) to get the colors to look right. Keep saving your work as you go. At some point, you will need to flatten the image in order to fine tune it, so keep doing a "Save As" so that you can go back to an earlier version, if need be. Blending and shadows need to be added to make it look realistic.

There are many ways to accomplish the same ends in Photoshop. What I did was to flatten the layers into one image and use the Blur Tool to go around the edges that looked rough. Then I used the Clone Stamp Tool to pick up shadows from nearby and copy them near the feet of the people who had been added. The final result is below.

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