Hungry, Hungry Hippozid

Today in Photoshop we were combining a lizard with a hippo, this is how we did it;

First I used an image of a hippo from MOODLE, and one of a lizard. I shrunk the image of the hippo to line it up with the lizard's head.

Next I used an adjustment layer to alter the colour of the hippo to make it match with the lizard. I used a hue/saturation layer.

Afterwards I used another adjustment layer, this time it was a colour correction layer to adjust the lighting so it matches the photograph of the lizard.

With the colour correction layer selected I used a mask layer to get rid of tyhe green inside the hippo's mouth, eye and ear to reveal the flesh colour.

Then I used the clone stamp tool to cover over the lizard's nose with the texture of the tree trunk to make it authentic.

Finally I used the fill tool to cover the entire picture with a blue colour and then set it on overlay mode and lowered the opacity to 30% to give the image a blue tint.

And here is the final piece.

I am happy with the final image, I especially like how I've blended the head onto the neck in a realistic manner.

Here is one of the source images.