Using new radial gradients, learn how to seamlessly blend faces into the background in Photoshop.

OW TO SIMPLY IMPLEMENT THE FLOATING HEADS EFFECT SEEN ON MOVIE POSTERS
Everybody has seen the floating heads effect on posters, album covers, and the covers of magazines. We integrate several images and expertly incorporate them into the background.

I had the thought while toying with Photoshop’s improved gradient tool that this would be useful for heads and faces. I gave it a try, and I realized right away that I had found the best application for this tool. I can’t wait to tell you about this finding right now.

Getting all the photographs into Photoshop and placing them in layers in a single document is the first thing we must do.

To load files into a stack, select File>Scripts.

Go to Browse and select your pictures. The images will be piled together if you have already opened them in Photoshop by selecting Add Open Files.

Press “OK”

A single document will have layers for each of the photographs.

By clicking the eyeballs in the Layers panel, disable all layers other than the background.

Resize and place the pictures of the faces one at a time. To transform for free, press Ctrl/Cmd+T. Drag to place. To resize, drag the corner edges.

For each photograph, we will carry out the following processes.

Make the layer visible after selecting it. (eye symbol)

To add a mask, click the New Layer mask button.

(G Key) Select the Gradients tool.

Transparent Foreground and Radial are good choices.

Ensure that the background color is black.

Verify that the top bar’s REVERSE checkbox is checked. Alternately, use a gradient from black to white. Multiple gradients may be used on a single mask (the Transparency option permits this).

Making sure the mask is selected in the layer, not the image..

Drag out from the center. Notice it creates a beautiful vignette effect and blends the image into the background.

Drag the center point under the opacity setting in the Properties window. The edges will now feather differently. The diamond on the overlay should allow you to achieve this, but it now seems to be broken.

If you want to do manual touchup on the mask it’s easy.

Grab a brush. Paint with black to hide areas and white to show them. Be strategic with the manual painting as you can easily ruin the smooth blend if you aren’t careful.

I sincerely hope this tutorial was helpful. I actually divided this instruction on the new Gradient tool into two parts. View the additional tutorial on creating a rainbow to learn how to use some of the other elements and benefit from a brilliant suggestion I came up with.

Please let me know if this was useful by leaving a comment.

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See you next time!