Flipping an image.

[BadgerBill]

Hello All

I have an image (see attached) that I want to duplicate, flip and then combine, so as to give the impression of the same head pointing both left and right. The left half of the face will look like a medieval knight, the right half will look like a medieval priest.

I've tried various methods, but none give the right result.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Many thanks.

Badgerbill

[carl123]

Your question is a little vague

Do you mean like this?

 

[Alfred]

24 minutes ago, BadgerBill said:

to give the impression of the same head pointing both left and right

Do you mean one head with two faces?

By the way, this ‘Tutorials’ section of the forums is intended for sharing tutorials, not for requesting them. Any questions should be posted to the ‘Questions’ section.

[walt.farrell]

55 minutes ago, Alfred said:

By the way, this ‘Tutorials’ section of the forums is intended for sharing tutorials, not for requesting them. Any questions should be posted to the ‘Questions’ section.

And to avoid potential confusion, it seems that a Moderator has already moved it.

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, Alfred said:

Do you mean one head with two faces?

Isn't it rather the dressing to make up a knight or innocent?

[BadgerBill]

Apologies to all for not being clearer.

I want to join the same head together so the face is facing both left and right, and also delete some hair - see example attached.2 heads 02.afphoto2 heads 02.afphoto

[iconoclast]

A Janus-Head? So I would release each head from its background, place them as needed and then erase the parts of the head that's lying on the top layer by using a Layer Mask. Finally you will have to do some retouche to merge the heads together seamless. But you should be aware of that it will probably not look completely realistic, because of the lighting angle. But check it out, if you are lucky it will not attract attention.

[NotMyFault]

2 hours ago, iconoclast said:

But you should be aware of that it will probably not look completely realistic, because of the lighting angle.

Really? I cant think of any Janus head Image looking realistic, even with perfect lighting. 😉

[thomaso]

6 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Really? I cant think of any Janus head Image looking realistic, even with perfect lighting. 😉

This thought just proofs humans limited understanding of "realism".

https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.bahnbrechende-operation-siamesische-zwillinge-erfolgreich-getrennt.2ccda9ef-82fe-4f4f-b89a-33316f3fa4c1.html

[thomaso]

… and this thought proofs the other end of the wide range of humans understanding of reality. 😬

Now an interesting question seems to be: Is it realistic that one of them is a knight and the other a priest?

[iconoclast]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Really? I cant think of any Janus head Image looking realistic, even with perfect lighting. 😉

Good point, but if you turn out the light perfectly even a Janus-Head would look realistic.😎

[carl123]

Just sliced one head and joined the 2 parts

 

[GarryP]

Getting the ‘Janus-head’ by itself is probably the easy part, although not easy in itself.
See attached image (crudely and quickly done, and I don’t know what to do with the neck – what would be more ‘natural’: full neck; or half-necks?).

Getting a suitable helm (knight) and cowl (priest) – both facing pretty-much-exactly in the same direction as the head(s) – so that they look like different characters, and then adding them to the image and blending them together would probably be the most difficult part.

I would say that this is not a trivial challenge – be prepared for a lot of experimentation.

[BadgerBill]

Morning All

Thanks very much for your help and suggestions. I wonder if I should just butt the 2 halves of the head together with no image overlap so to reduce retouching.

The idea is to create a person who's not sure whether to take the path of a priest or be head of the family manor.

As yo say, getting the headdress correct could be an issue. Might have to shoot it instead.

Regards

Bill 

[thomaso]

27 minutes ago, BadgerBill said:

a person who's not sure whether to take the path of a priest or be head of the family manor.

For this it doesn't have to be 1 identical + flipped photo of a person but could combine two different images of 1 person to illustrate the difference in the two paths, for instance by expressing different emotions, or by different surroundings behind 1 image of 1 person. That is not just an irrelevant decision between simply left or right as the flipped versions might indicate.

[iconoclast]

I agree with thomaso that two different photos would be much better. Even because of the light angles, I mentioned before. Just place your model in front of the camera and let him look to the right for one shoot and to the left for the second one. Of course without changing the position(s) of the light source(s). That is a very important point for an authentic look. By the way even for the knight helmet and the priest's gown or whatever you may puzzle into your collage to get the result you want.

Two different photos would also allow to have two slightly different facial expressions, what would look more interesting and more expressive, I think.

Possibly also a third photo of the back of the head could be helpful to get material for retouching the transition between the two photos.

[BadgerBill]

Hello Thomas and iconoclast.

You might be right, but the book's author is quite insistent the face should be the same.

However, if I shot it, I'll certainly take different angles, expressions.

Thanks for the  suggestions.

Badgerbill