It just seems a bit unfair that Johnny Depp gets the coolest characters to play and in spite of his undisputed talent and charisma I still think what the movie would be like if the role were performed by another super celebrity or even a debutant. So I just let my imagination guide me through the whole process of photo montage and depicted Brad Pitt as a Mad Hatter and actually that's exactly what I thought about him when watched the Fight Club for the first time.
This Photo manipulation can be performed almost on any photo and the images of your friends and your relatives would be a perfect choice to start with.
This tutorial is targeted at novices that have hard time using all the possibilities of the basic tools and don't even know various action shortcuts in Photoshop so I apologize to advanced photo editing experts for mentioning very obvious things. Please, note that the names of all files are exemplary and are used in the lesson just to illustrate the performed actions better.
First find the image of Mad Hatter and the picture of a person you would need to madhatternize. Here's what I've come up with after googling for a few secs.
Let's roll !
Step 1
Right-click the layer in the brad_pitt.jpg file and chose the Duplicate Layer option. Name it as Brad Pitt and duplicate it into the document named 2.jpeg
Open 2.jpg and now you should have 2 layers in it: the one with the Mad Hatter image and the second one called Brad Pitt.
Set the opacity of Brad Pitt Image to 50% so it'll be much easier to do all the manipulations and adjustments while being able to see the original face of Mad Hatter.
Make sure the Brad Pitt layer is active and Go to Edit - Transform - Scale . Adjust the size of Brad's head so it would look really natural, do use Johnny's face as a benchmark.
Step 2
Click the "eye" symbol by the Brad Pitt layer shortcut in a Layers Window. This would hide the Brad Pitt layer.
Choose the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a freehand selection around the face of Johnny Depp.
Make the Brad Pitt layer visible by clicking the "eye" button and left-click the layer.
At the bottom of the Layers Window chose the Add Layer Mask option.
Now left click the Brad Pitt layer and drag it on the 'Create a new layer' shortcut which is located at the bottom of the Layers Window as well.
Left click the Layer Thumbnail of the Brad Pitt copy layer
And then go to - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation and drag the slider to -100. Click OK. The face is now perfect for a digital make up.
Step 3
Left click the Background layer and with the help of a Rectangular Marquee Tool select the face of Mad Hatter.
use the Ctrl + J hot key to place the selected area into a new layer.
Choose the Layer 1 and put it by the face of Brad Pitt. Press Ctrl + T and do the fast and rough size adjustment. All this has been done to use the image of Mad Hatter's face as a pattern and the source of right colors for the new make-up for Brad.
Step 4
Let's repair the boundaries of the face layer with the help of a Stamp Tool. Select the 'Brad Pitt copy' layer and while holding Ctrl click on the Layer Mask Thumbnail. As a result the face area becomes selected.
Now we can copy missing skin from the layer 1 to the 'Brad Pitt copy' layer.
Step 5
Increase the contrast by going to: Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast - drag the Brightness slider to +8 and the Contrast slider to +39. Press OK.
Step 6
Now the Brad's face is completely ready for color correction. Make sure that 'Brad Pitt copy' layer is active. Press Ctrl + U, check Colorize box and drag the Saturation slider up to 10. With the help of a hue slider adjust the shade to make it bluish.
Step7
Press the Layer Mask Thumbnail in the current layer, choose the Brush tool from the tool box and set the following parameters: master diameter - 45 px; opacity - 10%. Set the foreground color to black.
With the help of a Brush Tool do the smooth transformation of Mad Hatter into "Brad Hatter"
Step 8
Now create a new layer, right click it, go to Blending Options and set the Blending Mode to Linear Light. Now with the help of an Eyedropper Tool select all the needed colors from the original to apply them to the Brad Pit face make up.
Set the Brush Tool opacity to 6% and start applying this makeup. Don't care much about the perfect color match as it's all can be fixed and adjusted with the Hue slider (Go to: Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation)
Step 9
To make the lips look glossy. Create a new layer and draw a white gloss with the brush over the lips (opacity 10%) Name the layer 'lips gloss' for instance.
Step 10
Now let's alter the color of the eyes. Chose the 'Brad Pitt copy' layer and select the iris of the both eyes with Polygonal Lasso Tool. Note that you need to press the Shift Key to add both eyes into the selection. Use the Ctrl + J hot key to open the selected area in a new layer.
Press Ctrl + B which would bring the Color Balance window to the screen. Adjust the color of the eyes with the help of the sliders.
Step 11
Create a new layer and with the help of the Brush Tool draw the pupil and the irides contours.
Step 12
The whites of Mad Hatter's eyes are yellowish so chose the 'Brad Pitt copy' and with the help of Polygonal Lasso Tool select the whites of Brad's eyes. Press Ctrl + B and the selected area will appear in a new layer. Then press Ctrl +B and adjust the color to the yellow by means of the sliders.
Step 13
Eyelashes are what make the look of Mad Hatter unforgettable and special so let's add this notable feature to our character's face. Choose the 'Background' layer and select the eyes area with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Press Ctrl + J and move the selection with the help of a Move Tool. Now select the eyelashes with Polygonal Lasso Tool. Press Ctrl + J and this will generate a Layer 8. Put it at the top of all the layers in the Layers Window.
Give the whole image a clean look with the help of the Eraser Tool.
Step 14
Hide the unnecessary and auxiliary layers in the Layers Window and viola!
In case the work does provoke you to learn and apply the same visual effects to your image, please do let me know and share your final results, this would indeed keep me highly motivated to write more. Thank You.
