Eagle Dog

This is a practice assignment on how to combine 2 animals together. You'll combine an eagle with a dog using these photos...

Open the photo of the dog below, then copy and paste the eagle into the same document...

Scale down the eagle picture a little bit. Make sure you push in from a corner so it stays proportional!

Double-click to get out of scaling. Right-click on the picture and choose Transform>Flip Horizontal. 

In the Layers panel, reduce the opacity of the eagle head layer to about 65%.

Use the Scale tool to size down and rotate/tilt the head so it'll fit on the body.  Don't make the head too small!

Once you have the right size and angle, bring back the opacity of the eagle picture to 100%.

Hide the bottom dog picture layer for now. This will make it easier to isolate the head.

• Zoom in to 200 - 400%.
• Click on the Lasso tool and select Feather "2".

Select parts of the eagle pic you don't want. Try to click and drag on the eagle, not the edge...

...and Delete. 

You should see no brown "glow". If you do, select the areas and delete them...

If you've got something like this below (with no brown glow), then you're good to move on.

When you show the dog layer again, it may look something like this...

1. Click on the Layer folder and insert a new layer folder.
2. Move the isolated eagle head picture into the top layer folder.
3. Copy the bottom photo (CTRL+C, then CTRL+V) and move it into the top layer, under the eagle head layer.
4. Rename your layer folders "original" and "new animal".
5. Lock the bottom layer folder.
6. Lock the eagle photo layer.

You should have something like this. You want the dog picture in the top layer folder to be selected/active. 

Check that your copied photo is in the exact same position as the original photo. In properties, the X & Y should both be "0". If not, fix them.

We'll now stamp parts of the dog out that are still showing - like the tongue and ears. Click on the Rubberstamp tool. Set the Brush size to pretty big (~40) and Edge soft (100).

Now we want to get rid of the dog's head. Click to set the source (what you want to be copied) and then click over an area (what you want to be changed).

To change the source, hold ALT and then click. You'll see a + sign for the source and a circle for the destination.

Now delete bits so you have the head the shape you want using the Lasso tool. Unlock the head layer and lock the dog stamped layer.

For the top and front of the animal we want to have clean (not fuzzy) edges, so keep feather down to about 2-3, select what you want to get rid of and Delete.

You also want to blend the eagle's feathers with the dog's fur on the body, so up change the amount of Feather to about 20, and select a curved area and Delete. This would be a good result...

After deleting the neck, you may get a bit of the dog showing. With the Lasso, set the feather down to "2" again, and then select a bit and delete.

Back out at 100% you should have something like this...