Step 13: Select The Texture Layer

Things are looking pretty good already at this point, but to add even more realism, we're going to use our displacement map to fit the texture around the contours of the person's face. First, we need to select the texture layer, since we currently have the layer mask, not the layer itself, selected. We can tell which one is selected by looking at the thumbnails in the Layers panel. You'll notice that at the moment, the layer mask thumbnail on the texture layer has a white highlight border around it. This means the layer mask is currently selected. To select the layer itself, click directly on the layer mask preview thumbnail:

Step 14: Unlink The Layer From The Layer Mask

If we apply our displacement map right now, both the contents of the layer (the texture photo) and the layer mask will be reshaped by the displacement map, and that's because the layer contents and the layer masked are linked together. We can tell that they're linked together by the small link icon between the two thumbnails. To unlink the layer contents from the layer mask so that the mask will not be affected by the displacement map, click on the link icon to remove it:

Step 15: Apply The Displace Filter

Finally, we're ready to apply our displacement map, and we do that using Photoshop's Displace filter. Go up to the Filter menu, choose Distort, and then choose Displace:

The Displace filter is actually made up of two separate dialog boxes. The first dialog box asks us to set some options, with the two most important options being at the top. The Horizontal Scale and Vertical Scale options determine how much impact the displacement map will have on the image. In other words, they determine how far the pixels in the image will shift horizontally and vertically. Unfortunately, there's no preview available so the Displace filter usually involves some trial and error until you get things right. The default value of 10 for both the Horizontal and Vertical Scale options is a good place to start, but I'm going to increase mine to 15 for a bit more of an impact. The values you end up using will depend both on the size of your image and on your own idea of what looks "right", so be prepared to undo this step a few times and try again. You can leave the Stretch To Fit and Repeat Edge Pixels options in the bottom half of the dialog box selected:

Click OK when you're done to exit out of this first dialog box, which will bring up the second dialog box asking you to choose your displacement map. Navigate to where you saved the displacement map we created earlier. Mine was saved to a "displacement maps" folder on my desktop, so that's where I'll navigate to, then click on the displacement map to select it and click Open:

As soon as you open the displacement map, Photoshop applies it to the texture and maps the texture to the contours of the person's face and head. If you're using a texture with lots of straight lines, like an American flag, for example, you'll see a very noticeable difference in how the texture wraps around the shape of the person's face. If you're using a texture like the one I'm using with lots of randomly shaped lines and cracks, the difference may not be quite as noticeable, although things should still look more realistic after the displacement map has been applied. Or at least, as realistic as a rock texture mapped to a person's face can look. Here's my final result:

And there we have it!

Want an easier way to learn Photoshop? Download our tutorials as Print-Ready PDFs!

Go to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5