Until some time ago, those who did not know how to use programs such as Photoshop, could never have dealt with photo montages and photo retouching. Today, even if professionals have their own modern software to work with, all amateurs and less experienced people can edit photos a bit as they wish, thanks to numerous online programs and services that manage to work semi-automatically.
As already seen, there are web applications to edit photos, tools to improve images, and many small online photo editing tools, each with a particular function.
As for the always fun photomontages, in addition to reporting sites that allow you to put a face in the body of another or in a different scenario, we have seen a free program that allows everyone to make realistic photomontages, even by putting the extract of a photo inside another own photo, without therefore using predefined scenarios.
With Fotomix you can create a photomontage in 10 minutes, putting the face of one person on the body of another, mixing two own photographs.
The same Fotomix developers distribute another absolutely free product called Fotomorph which instead allows you to mix photos dynamically, creating animated images that can be saved as GIF or video.
For example, you can create what is called a morphing effect between two photographs of faces so as to transform one person into another .
Animations can be created where one face transforms into another or by moving an image within the photo .
As shown by the examples provided, you can create a dynamic animation of an image by making a mouth smile or winking.
The moving image can be saved as an AVI video or GIF file that can be opened with any image viewer and can be uploaded to any social network, forum or website (see here how to create GIF images and animations from photos)
FotoMorph uses a very simple process for converting photos and its use is really intuitive.
To create the morph and mix two images, you can immediately create the new project by clicking on the projects tab at the top left.
After opening a white sheet, you can press on the Images tab to insert the two images to be mixed for the morphing effect.
For best results it is better to use two photos of the same size and where the framing of the subjects is, if not identical, at least similar.
If you need to resize the images, I always suggest downloading and installing a quick and easy program like Irfanview.
Once the images have been loaded into the program, small photo editing can be made using the deformation, effects and tuning options.
From the Control tab, the contour points of the two photos must be associated so as to create a correspondence in the nerve points of the faces.
Each point appears in both images so you have to work with the mouse making sure that the points correspond to similar parts of the face on each.
The more points you use, the more precise the morph will be, so I would say that with twenty points, placed around the face, around the eyes, at the corners of the mouth, ears and nose, you can have an excellent result.
In this phase you will also have to adjust the animation parameters.
By default, a duration of 2 seconds is set in the sliders at the bottom left while all other settings are at zero.
This is not really enough to appreciate the change of face so it would be better to put a duration ( duration ) of 5 seconds and also a delay ( end Delay )
For the rest there is not much else to do: you can add a text that changes during the photo change, add a frame or a background and set the animation in and out (by putting a flag where Return is written) .
From the Animation tab you can now press the Export button to save the morphing in a SWG flash file, in a GIF image or in an AVI video.
By saving it as an AVI video, you can, for example, upload it to YouTube.
Going back to the projects tab, you will notice that Morph is just one of the functions of this wonderful program.
There are three other types of projects available: Warp, Pan and Transition .
The Warp offers the possibility to make a single photo move, animating it.
The example given by FotoMorph is a photo of the Mona Lisa who moves and winks.
Making this animation is not complicated at all and you always work with points, uploading the same photo in the two panels.
The Pan project is that zoom effect to enlarge, always with a movement, a point of the photo more or less slowly.
This is the typical television presentation effect, where, taking a scenario, one detail can be artfully enlarged.
The transition effect finally allows you to switch from one photo to another with various types of disappearance and appearance.
FotoMorph, like the cousin FotoMix, is a program that can do fun things, with high visual quality, with simplicity.
From the official website you can download FotoMorph which also has a quick guide to all the functions, in English.
