Have you wanted to know how to create clones of yourself in Photoshop for social media profiles or other fun mayhem? I’ll tell you an easy way to do this in Photoshop. You can create one, two or 15 of you easily!

You’ll be your own clone army — instant multiverse glory! Your family may curse me for creating too many of you, but you’ll love it. Let’s get started.

Three of my clone brothers and I, admiring Joshua Tree National Park on another beautiful desert day.
Three of my clone brothers and I, admiring Joshua Tree National Park on another beautiful desert day.

How to use your camera to photograph your clone army

1. Place your camera on a tripod or stable surface

A tripod or stable surface is necessary so that you can easily blend, or “paint in,” yourself later.

2. Photograph yourself in different positions

If you are with someone, have them trigger the camera. If you are by yourself, set a 10-second timer on your camera, and then walk over to the different places you want to be and pose. Easy!

Photoshop fun

3. Stack all your photos

This is a closeup of the Layers Menu in Photoshop, showing some of the Layers, located in the right bottom corner of Photoshop. This shows the black Layer Masks with white painting to reveal the clones!
This is a close-up of the Layers palette in Photoshop, showing some of the Layers, located in the right bottom corner of Photoshop. This shows the black Layer Masks with white painting to reveal the clones.

This is easy. Go to File, select Scripts and then Load Files into Stack. Then select the photos you wish to stack.

You won’t see the clones of yourself at first. You’ll simply see one of the photos. Not to worry, that soon will change!

Photoshop screen shot showing Black Layer Masks.
All the photos have been stacked in Photoshop, and I have already added the black Layer Masks and begun painting white paint on them to reveal my clone army.

4. Click on those eyeball icons!

First, “turn off” all the photos except for the bottom two layers. Do this by clicking on the eye icon in Layers (bottom right of Photoshop, where you see all the photos stacked).

5. Create a black Layer Mask!

Create a Layer Mask (Layers > Layer Mask > Hide All) on the second stacked layer. This will produce a black layer mask to the side of your second stacked photo, which will make the second image of you disappear. Select this Layer Mask by simply clicking on it.

6. Paint, paint, paint

Close-up example in Photoshop, showing how it looks like when you are painting in the subject. Here, I still need part of my right leg to be painted in.
Close-up example in Photoshop, showing how it looks like when you are painting in the subject. Here, I still need part of my right leg to be painted in.

Then simply use a white color from your Brush tool and paint where you were on the second layer. Your new clone on the second layer should begin magically appearing. Don’t forget to paint in any shadows you may be casting to keep it realistic.

7. Keep building your clone army!

This screenshot of Photoshop shows my image after I have painted in two of my clones.
This screenshot of Photoshop shows my image after I have painted in two of my clones.

After you are satisfied with the second layer, click on the eyeball icon for your third layer. Then repeat step five. You get the idea. Keep going until you are finished! 

After that, simply press Save As to save your clone army photo masterpiece for sharing with your family and friends! They’ll be so happy that there is a giant army of YOU!

Other information

You should be able to do this in GIMP, Affinity or other software that works with Layers. The process should be relatively similar.

I did this with Photoshop 2021. However, considerably older versions of Photoshop (and the new 2022 version) can do this as well. I’ve done this in Photoshop CS2, for example. Even if you do not know Photoshop very well, this is very fun and easy.