UPLOAD
Flipping
Faces
Reveal the asymmetry in
familiar features—including
your own. By Erico Narita
None of us is perfectly symmetrical, but our eyes tend not to notice irregu-larities in faces we see many times. Anyone watching national TV news, for
instance, had eight years to get familiar with Dick Cheney’s lopsided grin, and
a previous generation had an equal amount of time to get used to Ronald
Reagan’s crooked smile.
To see these features more clearly, select one half of the face and reflect it,
so that the 2 sides become identical. Then select the other half and reflect
that, and compare the 2 versions. The results will be surprising.
I’ve chosen politicians for this experiment because
high-res photographs of them are available for free
download with no copyright restrictions.
Of course you can create your own photographs; if
you do, make sure both sides of the face are equally
lit, and place your camera at least 6' from the face
before zooming in to frame it. Portrait photographs
should not be taken close to the subject with a wide
lens, because this tends to create distortion.
When you’ve chosen a picture to work on, the
following steps will apply to Photoshop 6 or later
versions.
Place the line parallel to your guideline but just a
little to the right of it, to allow yourself some margin
for overlap. Continue around the entire left side of
the photo, then copy and paste. This will copy the
left side into a new layer — call it “First Layer Left.”
3. CREATE A NEW LAYER
Select all of First Layer Left, then copy and paste
again. This creates another new layer — I’ll call it
“Second Layer Left.”
4. CREATE A MIRROR IMAGE
Click the Second Layer Left in the Layers Palette to
make it active, then go to Edit → Transform → Flip
Horizontal. This creates a mirror image.
1. SPLIT THE FACE WITH A LINE
After opening the image, create a new layer in the
Layers Palette and use the Line tool to stretch a
straight line down the center of the face, from the
top of the head, along the bridge of the nose, and through the center of the chin.
5. ALIGN THE HALVES
This may be difficult, because the chin might not Go to Edit → Transform → Rotate and turn the
line up with the nose. But don’t worry if the line isn’t selection until the angle of its left edge matches the
completely vertical. angle of the right edge of First Layer Left. Drag the
image till it aligns and overlaps the one beneath.
2. COPY THE LEFT SIDE
Now click the Background layer in the Layers Palette.
6. CLEAN THE EDGES
Select the left side of the face with the Lasso tool, Use the Eraser set to 50%, and drag it down the
holding down the Alt key in Windows or the Option overlapping edge to hide the transition.
key on the Mac, to make it extend a straight line.
102 Make: Volume 16
