How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

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Ever thought about having a cool tattoo but not sure what it will look like?

We’re lucky to be Photoshop friendly, unlike Lil Wayne (I’d put him in Top Ten Ugliest Tats Ever list). And history has lots of examples of “unfortunate” tattoos. Like Johnny Depp’s “Winona Forever” tattoo. He had to change it to “Wino Forever” after their break-up. Or like the Game’s famous “star” tat on his face – he had a teardrop before, then changed to a star and now he has an “LA” I guess. Looks so weird.

So think twice before making a tattoo, it’s permanent. And removing a tattoo is a painful procedure leaving ugly scars on your skin. So before you decide on one, why not design your own tattoo in Photoshop first and see what it will look like?

I’ll give our beautiful R&B diva Beyonce a nice music tattoo. Hope she likes it.

1. Open your photo in Photoshop (Ctrl+O or File->Open…)

2. Open your tattoo image as well.

3. Now Select all (Ctrl+A) on your tattoo image and Copy (Ctrl+C):

2 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

4. Now go to your photo workspace and paste it there (Ctrl+V):

3 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

5. Select the tattoo layer by left-clicking on it:

4 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

Now we need to remove all the white from the tattoo image.

6. Select the Magic Wand tool by pressing W on your keyboard or select from Tools menu:

5 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

7. Just below the Main menu you will see options for the Magic Wand Tool. Set as below:

6 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

8. Now left-click on the white area on your tattoo image:

7 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

9. Press Delete. Here’s the result:

8 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

10. Now deselect (Ctrl+D) and with the Move Tool (M) place the tattoo where you want it.

If the tattoo is too large, you’ll need to resize it.

11. Select the tattoo layer. Press Ctrl+T. Now you’re in Free Transform mode. Resize and rotate it:

9 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

12. While still in Free Transform mode, right-click on the tattoo and select Warp:

10 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

13. Stretch it and distort it just enough to make it look like it’s really on your skin:

stretch

14. Apply changes by pressing Enter. You should come up with this:

12 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

15. Now in the Layers window set properties of your tattoo layer as below:

13 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

Here’s the result:

14 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

Cool huh? You can add some text as well using almost the same technique. The only different step will be rasterizing your text layer before Free Transforming it:

15 How To Add A Cool Tattoo To Your Photo in Photoshop

I hope you found this tutorial on how to design your own tattoo and test it in photos useful. If you have any thoughts or comments, please leave them here. Maybe you have some interesting ideas for the next Photoshop tutorial? Just let me know. I want to feed you guys with really useful and interesting tutorials and for that I need to know what you really want.

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