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Difficulty level:

Meaning of colors: menu path, keyboard shortcut

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Smooth transformation between images

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1. Open the Photoshop program.

2. Open two photos purposed to processing.
Choose File » Open from menu, or press Ctrl + O keys
...or by double clicking the left mouse button on the dark grey application background.

3. Now we have to move one of them to the new layer of the document that contains the other one. It doesn’t matter which on which.
You can do it using two methods:

The first method:
Click on one of the photos - it will be active (the blue bar on the top of the photo window). Press Ctrl + A keys - that’s how we select the whole picture, then press Ctrl + C - it copies the whole selected area.
Click on the second photo now (it is active - the blue bar on its top) and press Ctrl + V keys - it pastes a while ago copied picture to the new layer of the currently active document.
Done.

The second method:
Choose Move Tool (V) from the toolbox, click on one of the photos and holding the left mouse button drag one picture on the other, then release the mouse button.

Effect is the same as using the first method. Now you have to only align it to fit the document window (with Move Tool and mouse) and done.

Anyhow - we have the document containing two layers on which there are photos destined to processing. You can see it in the layer bookmark:

The picture on the higher layer is visible only, because the one that is on the higher layer covers everything what is on lower ones. But the second picture is not missing ;) It is still on its place. You can check it by clicking the eye icon on the left side of the higher layer (turning off its visibility)..

4. As the higher picture covers the lower one, do so the higher was transparent on its left side and gradually transforms into opaque on its right side. That’s how we receive the effect of smooth transformation between two images :)
For that purpose we have to create the mask of the higher layer. Click the Add Layer Mask icon in the layer panel - the higher layer has to be active that means highlighted with blue. In the picture below you can see the Add layer mask icon:

After that operation in the higher layer in the layer bookmarks appears the white rectangle, it means that the layer contains mask.

Why did we do it? Because everything that we paint over the mask with black will be transparent, everything painted with white - opaque. Simple. But how to obtain the effect of smooth transformation from black to white? We’ll use the - Gradient Tool (Gradient) Don’t be shy, click on it in the toolbox… What? There is no gradient in the toolbox? It is - click with the right mouse button on it: and in the window that appear you can find that tool :)

OK. We have Gradient Tool selected. Now we have to set its properties in the submenu. It should be implicitly set properly but if it is not, set these properties like in the following figure:

Gradient (on the left - drop-down menu) should be selected: black and white. Overlapping option (the icon on the left in the red outlined field).
Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Reverse: Depending on what colour we want to have on the left side (implicitly black and white, so OK, leave it unmarked). If you want to reverse it - mark it.

Now we can paint but before we do it - let’s make sure that we’ll paint on the mask, not on the picture. Click the rectangle marking the mask on the top layer - when it is active it should have a thin frame.
Now we can paint.
Move the cursor to the left side of the photo, click the left mouse button and holding it drag it to the right end of it. As we see Photoshop creates the line that shows the beginning, the direction and the end of the gradient applying.

Release the mouse button.
Finished :)

The end.