Photomerge

Stan · July 25, 2005

Last year, I went to the North Norfolk coast and shot a series of buggy jumping.

This year I went back, but the wind was very strong and the air was very salty, leaving my kit greasy.

It started raining just as I was walking back down the beach.

The light was not so good and they would only jump going away from me so no faces but here is the best I shot.

Stan

mushy · July 25, 2005

those shots are really cool, any chance on spilling the beans on how you achive such good results for photomerging?

Stan · July 26, 2005

mushy wrote:

those shots are really cool, any chance on spilling the beans on how you achive such good results for photomerging?

I should have atleast had a monopod, to keep the horizon level, but I was shooting handheld with a 100- 400 is with a canon 300D rebel.

The camera will only take 4 burst shots so that is all you get to play with. So you need enough movement that the subject does not overlap in the frame.

Stack the shots ontop of each other in photoshop and change the layer to overlay so you can see the underlying shot to line the background up, then crop the picture, and erase as much of the duplicated layers as possible keeping the subject and any extremities not duplicated. Change the layers to Normal and check the match, (skyline, waves etc) and flatten the image Now you can adjust the the shot as a single picture ( levels, curves, sharpness or whatever.

Show some of yours, I bet it works well for BIF

Cheers
Stan

gluwater · July 26, 2005

I was wondering how you did that. IMHO I think your sample shot showing us how you lined them up looks pretty cool with the overlapping shots and transparency.

Rohirrim · July 26, 2005

Nice Shots! Great job on the merge

ginger_55 · July 26, 2005

Stan wrote:

I should have atleast had a monopod, to keep the horizon level, but I was shooting handheld with a 100- 400 is with a canon 300D rebel.

The camera will only take 4 burst shots so that is all you get to play with. So you need enough movement that the subject does not overlap in the frame.

Stack the shots ontop of each other in photoshop and change the layer to overlay so you can see the underlying shot to line the background up, then crop the picture, and erase as much of the duplicated layers as possible keeping the subject and any extremities not duplicated. Change the layers to Normal and check the match, (skyline, waves etc) and flatten the image Now you can adjust the the shot as a single picture ( levels, curves, sharpness or whatever.

Show some of yours, I bet it works well for BIF

Cheers
Stan

Hey, I love that. I am not sure I understand how you are manipulating the layers.

I love stuff like that. Are you turning layers off and on to resize? I am just now beginning to have some comfort level with them.

Please, if you respond, I am jargon challenged, please try to explain w/o PC speak. I would love to be able to use that technique.

ginger

Stan · July 26, 2005

ginger_55 wrote:

Hey, I love that. I am not sure I understand how you are manipulating the layers.

I love stuff like that. Are you turning layers off and on to resize? I am just now beginning to have some comfort level with them.

Please, if you respond, I am jargon challenged, please try to explain w/o PC speak. I would love to be able to use that technique.

ginger

Thanks Gluwater and Rohirrim

Hi Ginger, OK if you take a burst of shots, at the same zoom length, the size will be the same.

Open a new File and size it to about 12 x 16 inches, it is not important but it wants to be bigger than your photomerge.

Open all the shots in photoshop, then drag all of the shots into the new file, using the move tool (a cross with an arrrow beside it)

Turn on the Layers box (windows- Layers) and you will see that you have created in my case 5 layers, (the background copy and layer 1-4)

By clicking and dragging on the layers you can re arrange the order of them.

Pull the most central shot, (shot 2 or 3) to the bottom, above background copy. Keep this frame as normal (in the box at the top of the the layers pallet) click on the other 3 layers to highlight them blue and click the drop down button beside normal and click the overlay option. Now the bottom layer is solid and the other frames are transparent.

Click on the eye in the layers pallet to make all but the bottom 2 layers visible, ignore the background copy you can drop it in the bin if you like.

Using the move tool, whilst ensuring the overlay layer is highlighted blue, drag the picture around until the background matches. you can zoom in on the photo to get a greater accuracy. when you are happy click on the eye to hide the layerand click on the box to show the layer above.

Again make sure the layer is highlighted blue and repeat the process for all the remaining layers.

Now go back to each layer and erase any overlapped frame using the eraser and again ensuring the layer is highlighted. Don't worry about being too precice, if the background is accurately matched there will be little evidence or the join.

At the top of the page, beside the eraser tool click the brush spot and move the slider down on the hardness tho give a smoother transition from one layer to the next.

After you have done each layer, click on the drop down arrow beside the overlay box in the layers pallet and change it back to normal or it will look like this...

Good luck with trying out something new

Cheers
Stan

mushy · July 26, 2005

thanks heaps for the 'dummy's guide to photomerging' will hopefully try it on a climbing subject this weekend

Stan · July 26, 2005

mushy wrote:

thanks heaps for the 'dummy's guide to photomerging' will hopefully try it on a climbing subject this weekend

Neat lets see the results

:

ginger_55 · July 27, 2005

Thanks, Stan.

I just printed it out. I love it, hope I get on it next time I go out.

Thanks a lot, looks like "real words", too.

ginger

Zygote · July 27, 2005

Hi Stan!

Wonderful pictures! Thanks a lot for explaining how you did it. Something i will hopefully manage myself some day.

Photomerge

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