Making Mini Cars - part 1

Source used - http://www.flickr.com/photos/guano/414733876/
Thanks Guano for the great image.

Let’s crop the image, removing the top and bottom one thirds as they are not needed. Duplicate the background layer. Rename this layer “Mini car”. Now we must Free Transform (Ctrl + T) the Mini car layer, grab the right side and shrink it by moving it to the left about two thirds of the way.

Hide the Mini car layer. Now back on the Background layer using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), start at the petrol cap and create a rectangle making sure to go past the back of the car and below the tyre. Copy and paste this to a new layer and name it “rear wheel”. Move this layer to the top. With all layers visible it should look like this.

Now hide the background image. Free transform the Rear wheel layer and lower the opacity to 70%. This is where the fun begins. Position the wheel carefully so that the rear wheel arch is nearly in the same place. I used the rear bumper line as a guide. I also made sure that the front of the wheel arch didn’t cover the air intake.

Now bring the opacity back to 100% and create a layer mask (click on the rectangle with the circle in it at the bottom of the layer’s window). Using a 35px brush at 0% hardness and the foreground colour set to black, start removing the areas that are not required. We want to keep the wheel and wheel arch panel. Use a smaller brush of 17px for the areas like the air intake and rear bumper. I also like to hide the Mini car layer when I think I am done to make sure I haven’t left any straight edges so that the image blends better. It should now look like this.