How can I swap or cut & paste a head from one photo into another for a holiday photo using aperture or photoshop?

As Allan said - don't believe that Aperture can do it.

You would have to export both photos to Photoshop, open the one with the "head" you like, select the head with one of Photoshop's selection tools (depends on which one you feel the most comfortable using and what the "head" looks like, eg: lots of hair sticking out) and then either copy and paste the selection to the other shot or drag the head selection from one shot to the other. Problems will be getting the lighting to match (if your son is not lighted the same way) and especially if his head is turned differently from one shot to the other. If it is only his eyes - you said he is not "looking" at the camera - you might be able to just copy and paste the eyes from one shot to the other. (I do this with my wife as she has a tendency to blink one eye.)

Good luck, Steve

select the head with one of Photoshop's selection tools

When doing this, I find it quite helpful to create an intermediate image with a transparent background that contains only the head to be pasted into the second image. First I paste the head onto this transparent background, scale it, rotate it or skew it to make it fit into the other image, adjust the lighting, then select it.

To be able to paste the head seemlessly into the second image (and without aliasing effects), I make the border of the selection soft (⌥⌘D); my Photoshop has a german interface, so I am not sure about the english localization, this command must be something like "selection -> modify selection -> soft border".

I would not bother to get the lighting and color excactly right in Photoshop, that is far easier with the "dodge" and "burn" brushes and color adjustments in Aperture.

To do this completely in Aperture, you would have first to combine both images into one (for example by creating a book page), then use the retouche->clone tool to stamp the head from one image to the other. I use this occasionally to stamp a face into a flower bud or for similar effects. However, for this to work you need a plain background and nearly circular shapes to be pasted.

Léonie

Thanks Swandy. It has been so long since I used PhotoShop I couldn't remember how to do it.

I was getting ready to try but decided to check here just in case.

Allan

Not with Aperture. Aperture is not a photo editing program.

It should be possible with Photoshop.

Allan