Step 3

Next I duplicated this layer then moved it behind the original layer and scaled and moved it to the left slightly. I then grabbed a large soft brush with an opacity of about 30% and brushed over his face in the layer mask. I then duplicated the original layer again and moved it behind also then went edit>transform>flip horizontal and scaled and moved it slightly. On this layer brushed over his trousers and the bottom of his shirt in the layer mask. Usually when I'm working in Photoshop I add a layer mask to every layer I create just out of habit as it allows for a lot of subtle changes which can be changed throughout the process unlike using the eraser tool. Okay your image should look like the one below, now just change the opacity to both of these new layers to about 10%.

Step 4

Create a new layer group then select the three layers with the people in then drag them into this layer group. It is a good idea to name this group sensibly as we will have a few groups after we have finished. Now click on the group and add a layer mask, the reason I added a layer mask to the group was that if I wanted to hide parts of all three of these layers then I could do so with this mask. Grab a large soft brush with an opacity of about 30% then brush over the left side (his right) of his body and also his trousers and some of his hair in order to blend him into the background. Try and get him looking like the image below.

Step 5

Create a new layer group above this called 'adjustments'. This is where we will add adjustment layers to make the image look better. The advantages of using adjustment layers over layer adjustments are that an adjustment layer comes with a layer mask so your adjustment can be applied to selected parts of your image also a lot can be changed later on in the design like the settings or the opacity. You'll probably agree with me when I say that that this man's fashion sense isn't all that great. But with some easy Photoshopping we can change this very quickly. Firstly the navy blue suit would look a lot better black in order to match his hair and our background. The brown belt doesn't match so we will also change that to black and the blue shirt would look better light gray. This all makes for an easy adjustment because all we need is to desaturate all hiss clothes then change the brightness and contrast of the some of the parts. Start by creating a hue/saturation adjustment layer (next to the layer mask button) and change the saturation to -100, in other words grayscale. Now select the layer mask and using a soft black brush with about 30% opacity, paint onto his face. We still want his face to be of a low saturation as shown in the image below so don't brush too much. If you're really into your small details like me then do the same with the small part of his hand that you can see.