Here are the photos we will be working with.  I obtained these images from Stock.xchng.

Step 1:  Fixing the Wings

We need to do a little surgery on this dragonfly and separate the wings from his body.  Before we go snipping them from the little guy, we need to fix the wings so they look more realistic later, and not like they were in fact removed from a dragonfly.

To do this, you’ll be using a tool you may or may not have used before – the Healing Brush.  You can use this to replicate other pieces of the picture in a paintbrush form.  This is great for touching up photos and keeping it as realistic as possible.  This tool is often used for correcting something like bags under people’s eyes, or blemishes.

*To use this, select the tool, hold down the ALT button on your keyboard and click the spot you want to replicate.  You can resize the brush if you need to and change the opacity if needed, and then click over where you want that pattern/color to appear.  I’ve found that it’s best to just do a clicking method, rather than holding down the mouse button and dragging, as the healing brush mimics your motion.  You’ll have to play with it a little bit if you’ve never used it to see what I mean.

I am using the healing brush to fill in the portions of the wings next to the body, where you can see the dragonfly’s legs.  It take a little patience, but you’ll get it.

Once you finish “healing” the wings, cut them away from the dragonfly’s body using whatever method words best for you.  I used a combination of the Eraser and the selection tools.  You also want to separate them from the background.  I used the Magic Wand to select around them, Inverted the selection (CTRL+SHIFT+I), copied and pasted onto a new layer.  I then selected around one of the wings, copied that and pasted that on a new layer.  The end result will be a top wing on one layer, and a bottom wing on another.

Step 2:  Attaching the Wings

Now that we have beautiful wings, let’s attach them to our human—soon to be faerie!

After you get past the creation of the wings, it’s all cake.  That sounds good doesn’t it?

We’re going to copy and paste your new wings into your human picture.  You only have one side of wings, so you’ll have to create two of each of them when you transfer them to your person picture, and flip one of each of them (two total) so they face the other direction.  Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal

Now, it’s just a matter of positioning them on the back of your person, resizing and rotating each one to the angles and size you want.  CTRL+T or Edit>Transform>Scale.  Be sure to hold SHIFT down when resizing so you don’t distort the dimensions of the wings.

*Either keep the wings all on separate layers, or you can merge them into one layer at this point.  Whatever you choose to do, at the very least link them together so you’re not moving individual wings all over the place.

Step 3:  Color Adjustments, Wing/Body Tweaking

Since my human is higher contrast than what the wings are, I am going to play with the Levels (CTRL+L or Image>Adjustments>Levels) to get them to match a little better.  You may also want to use the Hue and Saturation (CTRL+U or Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation), it’s all up to you on the colors/appearance of your wings.

Dragonfly wings are a little transparent, so I am going to adjust that on these wings.  Over in the Layers window there is an Opacity setting.  80-90% would be a good range to still keep them looking realistic.

If you’ve ever looked at wings on insects, you’ll notice that sometimes there are holes in their wings from them being torn or damaged somehow.  I’m doing to delete little sections of the wings to make them look worn down a little bit.

I’m also going to add a little tattoo I created to our now faerie here to give her a little extra style.  She’s looking good.

Now, you’re going to delete the background so we can merge her and her wings with her environment.

Step 4:  Placing the Faerie in her Habitat

Link and/or merge all of the layers of the faerie, and now we’ll put her in her surroundings.

You may need to adjust your faerie some once you get it into the background picture.  I scaled this one down so she was proportionate with the grass and mushroom in the picture.  Also, my photo was cropped, so I have to create the top of her head.

You’ll want to coordinate the color-stylings of your faerie and the background.  For this, I used the Levels adjustments until they looked the way I wanted them to.

<img src="http://images.ientrymail.com/tutorial2life/9.jpg"> <img src="http://images.ientrymail.com/tutorial2life/10.jpg">

Now, we don’t want her to just be sitting over top of all the plants, she should look like she’s sitting within them.  To do this, just outline some of what would be the foreground, copy and paste it into a layer above the faerie.  Position it, and touch it up so it’s not all jagged and looks realistic.  Reposition the faerie if you need to.  Don’t forget to blend the faerie into the background.  Right now I need to clean up the edges of her body, and make her legs fade, disguise her arms and so on.

Step 5:  You’re Finished!

Anything else you do is up to you.  Maybe make the faerie glow, give it some crazy hair color, whatever you think.  When you’re done, just crop it to how you want it to look!

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial!