Step By step Shrink yourself

Piece together images in photoshop using simple selection and masking skills

01 select The Person

Open the three images – the scene with/without the doll and the portrait – into Photoshop. First go to the portrait and grab the Quick Selection tool, then paint over the subject to select them. Hold Alt and paint to subtract if the selection goes wrong.

02 improve The cutout

Once done click ‘Select and Mask’ at the top. Use the controls here to improve the selection edge. Increase the radius slightly and use the Refine Radius brush to paint over any fuzzy edges like hair. Once done, choose Output to: Layer Mask and hit OK.

03 combine The Photos

Grab the Move tool for the toolbar and use it to drag first the image with the doll and then the image with the person into the empty book scene. Hit Cmd/ Ctrl+t to transform the person then resize and position them to fit roughly over the doll.

04 mask The doll

Go to the Layers Panel and highlight the middle layer (the one with the doll). Click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel, then grab the Brush tool, set the colour to black and paint to hide any parts of the doll that are still showing.

05 Warp The body

Highlight the top layer (of the person) then right-click it and ‘Convert to Smart Object’. Then go to Edit>puppet Warp. Click several ‘pins’ over the person at points around the body, then drag the pins to subtly alter the figure so that it closely matches the shadows.

06 adjust Tones and colours

Adding a tonal effect on our final image will help it all gel. Hit Cmd/ctrl+shift+alt+e to merge a layer of everything, then go to Filter>camera Raw Filter. Choose Profile in the settings, then lower the saturation a bit and make any tonal changes you like.