Put an Image Over Another in Photoshop

Learn how to make a background transparent so an image can be placed over another. Combining images together almost always requires removing the background before anything else is done. This will isolate the image or object in question, allowing for easy transfer and it can even look very real. Take a look at how we morphed two faces together to create a new person by removing the background of the selection before transferring.
Today we’ll look at two simple clipart images to show the fundamental routine one goes through to isolate a picture and combine it with another.

Erase the background and move a picture over another

We have to start by extracting the image out of its background before we overlay it to another. This is so the background is transparent and doesn’t interfere with the new image.
This is the result if we don’t remove the background before overlaying:

Notice the white background from the tiger is interacting the the background layer of the car. Following out previous post on removing a background, let’s expand a bit by doing this over another layer like we have now.
We’ll want to hide the layers that aren’t involved in the removal so as not to get confused. Click the eye next to each layer that isn’t the tiger, in this example.

This successfully shows the tiger with a transparent back behind its white background. To make this all transparent so we can freely move the tiger around, use the “Magic Wand Tool” to quickly select the white portion.

Choose delete when you’re happy with the selection. The image has been extracted from it’s background, as shown below.

Deselect with “Ctrl+D” and unhide the other layers to show a tiger than can now sit on any surface.

This was a very easy example because the colors are polar opposites. When you are presented with images more complex like a human body that includes clothes and hair while standing in front of a tree, more work will definitely be needed. We’ll look at these in the future but for now, using the “Magic Wand Tool” will surely suffice.
Download these project files