Bend picture for follow a shape

[SCTRWD]

It's a face and not a ball. While displace is not perfect, it well suited for most projects, since a large majority of the viewers will just think that it looks cool and they can't be bothered with the technical accuracy or in other words, mission accomplished.

The quality is the thing you judge yourself. If you settle for a hackwork then so be it. Haltura - as we put it in russian.

You fail to understand that liquify requires more than just knowing how the tool works. As for displace; why is he fooling anyone? Displace is an easy tool to use if you know how it works and what kind of things you have to watch out for.

So, you know. What next? Next you start to FIX the "things you have to watch out for", right? You do not just let them be, do you?

Let me guess. There are tons of black and white regions, which do not reflect the profile of the face: black hair of a brunette, cast shadows(under nose, on the neck, in the eye sockets, just shadows from other objects), black eyebrows, white teeth, blackness in the nostrils, ears, eye whites and so on, and on, and on... All of them has to be found and fixed some way or the other. And "knowing" doesn't help much here - this work still has to be done, "knowing" or not. So much for "an easy tool to use"

[pswift]

I don't understand why you're trying to convince me that displace is not perfect, when I just stated that it's not perfect.

hawkeye's suggestion was a good one. He understands what kind of people visit this forum and what their goals are. He doesn't overwhelm them with non-Photoshop techniques (because that's needed if you need good results with liquify to do what he did with hat face), but sticks to straightforward techniques that give results that satisfy most people. It's also a technique that is suggested by most professionals like Scott Kelby, Deke McClelland, Matt Kloskowski, etc, because also they understand the needs of beginners.
You fail to understand that all people who ask such questions on this forum aren't pros, pros don't come here to ask questions.

Anyway, just my $0.02 ;)