Photoshop photo manipulation tips and tricks

I was wondering, how would you actually say "photo montage" in English? Is it better to call it a photo montage, photo retouching, or maybe something else entirely?
Also, I guess I was curious if there are any specific websites out there where I could find some good tutorials... I'm really hoping to learn how to swap my own head onto someone else's body in a way that looks completely seamless, you know? Like, I want it to be so convincing that nobody can even tell it's a trick. Does anyone know if there are actual tutorials for that kind of thing?

Does anyone know of a good site where I can find some tutorials?

Take a look at this link; it might have exactly what you're looking for.
http://www.tutorijali.net/photoshop

Wouldn't that fit better under Linguistics or Photography?? ☕ Photo retouch

Photo manipulation...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_manipulation

I was wondering if anyone might happen to know how I could go about erasing that second head so I can swap in my new one?
The tricky part is that the existing head is just way too massive, and I really don't want to stretch out my own features because then I'd probably end up looking totally oversized! 😁

It’s not really something you can just pick up overnight.
I mean, it's a craft—just like any other skill you'd want to master.
You've gotta take it slow, starting with the basics before you even think about moving on to those big, complex photo montages.

Photo manipulation.

Oh, I am well aware of that!
I suppose I might have stumbled upon a little workaround for erasing that first section—it involves using a specific tool (not that I’ll say which one, since I doubt anyone here would actually offer any help anyway) to basically paint over it using the background elements...
Also, I was wondering if anyone might know—though I suspect the answer is no—how one could possibly brighten up a head so it looks as though it were captured under bright, natural sunlight outdoors?

I think I figured out a way to wipe out that first head. Basically, I’m just using some tools to paint over it with the background...

So, you could take your own head and just slap it right over the one in the other photo. Just use Free Transform to line it up. If you really want to get fancy, you can actually remove the head from the original image entirely and just put the background in its place. There are definitely easier and harder ways to do that depending on how messy the background is. If it's just a simple, solid color, you can pretty much just stretch the background to fill the gap. Man, I don't know if I can explain the technical stuff clearly enough, and it's hard to really show you what I mean on a forum. But if the background is more complicated, you could probably play around with the Clone Stamp Tool or the Spot Healing Brush Tool to blend things.

Does anyone know (though I doubt it) how to brighten a head so it looks like I was actually outside in the sunlight?

Hue / Saturation (CTRL + U)
Color Balance (CTRL + B)
Levels (CTRL + L)
Brightening or darkening specific parts of the layer -> Burn Tool, Dodge Tool.

I guess that's a quick rundown for you, but I'd have to actually fire up Photoshop to give you the real details. I'm probably forgetting a few things. And honestly, you aren't going to master this overnight. You've gotta really sit down and put in the hours to actually wrap your head around Photoshop.

Raymond Campbell35 said:Basically, you just grab your head from one shot and slap it onto the other using free transform. If you really want to get fancy, you can actually strip the old head away entirely and fill in the background where it used to be. There are easy ways and hard ways to do that depending on how messy the background looks. If it's just a plain, solid color, you can just stretch it out... honestly, I can't quite explain the technicalities here, and I can't exactly give you a live demo on a forum. But if the background is complicated, you can play around with the Clone Stamp Tool and the Spot Healing Brush Tool...

Man, listen, first thing you gotta do is cut your head out of that other photo. Try to make sure the edges overlap slightly using either the polygonal lasso tool or the magnetic lasso tool(you'll find those in the side palette once you go to window>tools), then move to the second photo.

Once you've got the head selected, hit Select>inverse and then tap delete. That should leave you with nothing but your head sitting on a white background. To make that white part transparent, you need to go to the layers palette—usually found at the bottom left if you click windows>layers background —and double-click it to turn it into a regular layer. Then just select the white bits remaining on the photo, hit delete, and boom, you have a transparent background.

Now you've just got the HEAD. Copy it (ctrl-A and ctrl+c) over to the target photo, and use free transform (ctrl+T) to resize it until it actually fits the proportions of the new image.

To match the colors of the head to the rest of the photo, follow what Firestarter suggested, though Image>Adjustement>Brightness/Contrast can definitely help a bit.

But honestly, it's hard to say exactly what you need without seeing it. Photoshop is an art form... or just playing around, depending on how you look at it.😁