In this week’s free episode of Deke’s Techniques, Deke uses his trusty Photoshop skills to explore human facial symmetry and all its intriguing magic and possibility.

He starts with the same intrepid model who, last week, became a five-headed rainbow wonder. She’s a good sport about being turned into various impossibilities, really. And she comes from our friends at the Dreamstime image library where friends of Deke are welcomed with gifts.

Using the Free Transform command, Deke first flips her horizontally, essentially creating mirror images.

Using layer masks, he then makes two versions her right-side only faces (I think at this point we have four halves of the same side of her, but I’ve lost track of whether it’s her right or our right.)

Next he reuses another set of the copies, this time with an inversed mask that is then further masked between its opposites. (Yeah, I’m confused what I’m talking about, too, but it’s pretty cool.)

Note, because he’s using masks, all sides of all faces are still intact and available should we wish to restore them. For example, here, I’ve turned off the mask on the far-right head (our right) which is actually the original model’s asymmetrical beautiful face. Now we can see all three (On the left, right-side symmetry, in the center, left-side symmetry, on the right asymmetry aka her actual face.)

If you’re a member of LinkedIn Learning, Deke’s got a follow up movie in which he shows you how to hand-paint the necks and shoulders of our three faces inside its symmetrical layer mask, in order to reach the effect shown up top.

Deke’s Techniques, facing the world with Photoshoppery.