The Perfect Photoshop?

depends on the pictures and your skills with photoshop

The devil’s in the details, they say.

To make it impossible to tell that it is fake would likely require an extraordinary, impractical, and maybe even impossible level of planning and effort.

At the end of the day, the photo you craft is fake… so it would simply be a matter of time for someone to crack it.

Now, if you’re looking to make an attempt that would pass casual inspection, like for a family Christmas card or something… well, that’s actually not too hard.

But if you’re trying to beat the pros who have the forensic tools and know how to use them (even if you’re one yourself), I’d look for something else to try.

—

I’ve done the Christmas card bit… little kids and pets can be so persnickety trying to get everyone looking at the camera and smiling.

No one could tell that I’d replaced heads, filled-in missing arms, etc… even after pointing it out.

But I’m sure a pro couldn’t pointed out all the edits in under an hour, with the right tools.

(arg! typo correction on last line: …a pro could’ve pointed out…)

It can be done with a bit of skill. The biggest caveat is that the direction and quality of light in both photos must match.

It can be done. I’ve done it with quite a few christmas cards and the like. If you do it well, nobody can tell unless they are REALLY looking. Few people look hard enough to see the tiny things that make a difference.

If you have a photo and don’t know if someone has been PSed in, post it, and we’ll tell you.

(If you want to see some cool photomanips, take a look at http://worth1000.com. Be careful, though, you can waste a hell of a lot of time on there.)

It takes some doing…The biggest mistakes most make is to use the presets on the tools.
You need to to woggle, joggle, and toggle the settings to get them completely perfoggle. Those are all highly technical terms that I just made up.
Try fiddling with the Filter>Render>Lighting effects to match lighting. You can also build shadows a variety of different ways.
We have all the CS incarnations here at work, but I like 7 the best because I’m familiar with it.
like a glove

It dose indeed depend on the knowledge of the person looking. Someone who uses Photoshop or another similar program will have an easier time telling. There are also programs now that can tell based on pixel patterns whether they have been altered or not. The style of the photo graph can help you to.

@ Knot – Funny you should say that. I upgraded to CS and ended up going back to 7 because I liked it better.