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I wanted to make an image that had an "image behind the image" that was revealed, in this case, through the opening of a zipper.
I started with this photo from Pixabay, a source of copyright-free images. I like her interesting face, big eyes and serious gaze.
In iColorama, I used Form/Warp to change the shape of her face (just drag your finger or stylus across the image to warp it). Then I cropped it. I like to warp faces to enlarge the eyes and forehead, which makes her look more alert or even surprised.
I used Style/Coherence preset 1, Style/Flow preset 1, and Effect/Glow preset 1, all at low to medium opacity, to smooth the face.
Here I applied one of the Style/Flat presets, to simplify and remove detail.
Again I warped the face to give a more comic book flavor and give a different expression to the eyes. This will be my source for the eyes of the final image.
Now I'll use this photo from Pixabay. Almost any clean face would do, and I liked her mouth, which which I will keep, somewhat altered, in the final image.
I warped the image using Form/Warp. Then I smoothed it as did for the image of the girl, above.
I used Metabrush in Paint mode to paint on big hair, sort of like dreadlocks. For the source image for the brush (choose the source image using the little flower-like icon from the strip along the left-hand side of the Metabrush screen), I used the previous image, that is the warped woman with the pink and blue headscarf. I used a Gradient brush (this is one of the brush groups you'll find if you click on the brush icon on the bar at the top right of the Metabrush screen) and experimented with the brush settings, which you can find on the bar at the top right of the Metabrush screen (look for the little 3-slider icon).
Now I'll use this photo from Pixabay. It was small so I upsized it using the BigPhoto app.
I used Style/Flow preset 1 and Effect/Sharpen (I tried various presets) and some of the tools under Tone, on the zipper. Then, in Effects/Blend, I blended the zipper with itself twice. Each time I rotated the top image to get a steeper angle for the open part of the zipper, and then I positioned the rotated image where I wanted it. To get the position right, in Effects/Blend, I reduced the opacity to 50% so I could see both images, and I used my fingers to position the top image so that the new line of the open part of the zipper connects with the zipper pull. Then I moved the opacity back to 100%. Then I used an inverted brush mask, to paint in the new angle for the zipper. I touched the Brush Mask button on the left side of the screen, which brings up the brush mask bar, and I touched Invert on the brush mask bar. I touched Zoom on the right of the screen and used my fingers to zoom in where I want to paint the mask. Then I touched Zoom again so I could paint the brush mask. I decreased the brush size on the brush mask bar, and I painted in the new angle for the zipper. While painting the brush mask, if you make a mistake, you can touch Erase, then paint your correction, then touch Paint, and continue painting the brush mask. When I was done, I touched the Remove button on the brush mask bar to remove the brush mask. I repeated this whole process to get the new angle for the lower part of the opened zipper.
I will use this image of the sky, which is one of my own photos, processed in iColorama using Style/Coherence and Tone and other color adjustments. This will be the image that the open zipper reveals.
In Effect/Blend, I blended the zipper onto the dreadlocked woman, using my fingers to position the top image where I wanted it, with the zipper pull over her nose. Again, you will need to use a brush mask to blend only the portions of the image that you want. Then I blended the sky onto the result, again using a brush mask, just as we did above.
I did some additional processing for Tone, Effect/Sharpness, masking out the sky part. Then in Effect/Blend, I replaced the eyes with the eyes from the previously warped image of the little girl. Reduce opacity so you can see where to position the new eyes, then put opacity back to 100%. Use an inverted brush mask to paint in the eyes, using Erase to correct any mistakes that you make while painting the mask.
I cropped the image. And I used Form/Warp to make a more pouty mouth. I also used Tone/Sepia, and an inverted brush mask, to paint away the color from the clothing at the base of her neck.
I felt there were too many colors in the image, making it feel busy. So I used Tone/Tint to get a more monotone image, using a brush mask to mask out the sky part so I could keep its color and also the eyes so the whites are not tinted. Then I added in some highlights in the hair and lightened the skin a bit using Effect/Light preset 1. Then to finish, I added some contrast in Adjust/Levels, smoothed a bit in Style/Coherence, and sharpened a bit in Effects/Sharpen.
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