This tutorial is for Adobe Photoshop:

I'm going to attempt to show you the process of removing a head from a photo. In this example I am using a photo of George W. Bush.

When doing this you need to take into account a few things. One, the angle of the clothes and two, the background. You are going to have to recreate both... so you need to pick something you are confident you can work with.

I decided to use this image because I knew the background is easy to work with and because I know I can complete it in a short amount of time.

Here is my starting image:

Step 1.

Open your image:

Step 2.

Copy your layer and add a layer mask to it.
(Google search "photoshop masking" if you are lost with this step, you WILL need masking skills to move forward)



Turn off the top layer... we will be coming back to it at the end.

Step 3.

Starting with the bottom of the two layers...
Recreate the background behind the head.
Don't worry about the shirt at this time.

This image has a vertical type background on the wall...
so I'm going to make a selection at the top.

Copy it, Paste it onto a new layer, and resize it with free transform.
(Ctrl+C > Ctrl+V > Ctrl + T)

Step 4.

Mask out the clothes.

I start by making the new layer a transparent by
adjusting the layer opacity.



Then using a layer mask and a plain circle brush I mask out the clothes.
Remember this looks like I deleted the head, but acutally I'm deleting
the background coverage to allow the clothes to show through.

Turn the opacity back to 100% and it looks like this:

Step 5.

Make it look more real by working on the clothes.

Right now an amature might call it a day...
of course an amature would have used the eraser and
screwed everything up way before now.

So... since you are beyond that and you are using masks...
it's time to follow through with quality.

The next step is to hit google images for some clothes.
I did a search for "dress shirt" and found this:



His shirt has a slight blue tint, so I thought it best to start with a blue shirt.

Next we MASK out the shirt leaving only the inside area.
Another great reason for masking here is that once we fit it
on the body we might need some of the shirt back...
and it will be easy to do.

Step 6.

Move the shirt in place and color adjust it.

Here I have free transformed (ctrl +T) the shirt and used by best
judgement to lay it against the collar from the original shirt.



Next I color adjusted it.
I can't really give you any settings for this.
It takes playing around with the Hue/Sat and Brightness levels.
When you feel it's the best it's going to get, you move on.

Step 7.

Make it look more real.
Take some time and match up the odd fitting areas.
Also add some shadow inside the shirt at the bottom edge.
This will act as a shadow to give depth.

In my example I used a combination of a circle brush and the burn tool.
I also did some cloning and blending to the collar as needed.

Step 8.

Fix any other clothing items.

So now we have a nice headless suit...
We have a nice looking shirt collar...
BUT... we have a huge gap in the shoulder.

It would be hard to use a new random suit to fill this in.
It would also be difficult to draw it in from scratch.

So...
I say we steal the other shoulder and flip it.
(you have to be creative sometimes)



but this alone won't do... the collar doesn't line up.
The shoulder is out of wack...

Easy enough fix. Start masking again.



I line everything up as best as possible, mask what I can...
and end up having to draw very little.

Step 9.

You're not done.

You might think you are done. It looks pretty good.
Here's where you are going to clean up even better.

Turn on the top layer from step one.
Now we see the original image again.
Start masking with a nice fuzzy brush, over the head.



Now instead of relying on all of the things you edited, you can remove the head and reveal an actual background behind it... and you only remove what HAS to be removed leaving as much of the original image as possible. This trick will hide a lot of small flaws you may have.


Final Image:



I did this kind of fast so I could make a tutorial as I went.
I would probably go back and add some "noise"
and some small imperfections to the back wall.

I might take the time to make the collar shadows look a little better.
I usually spend a lot of time on these.
I'd even go ahead and remove the hand.

Here's the real deal though.
You have to remember, no matter your photoshop skill level,
it's bound to be better than those around you.

So even with some small imperfections,
it will will usually pass for your needs.

Have fun.

Here they are again:
Start:


End: