Lessons

Lesson Info

Combining Images in Photoshop

uh when it comes to tourists sometimes what I end up doing a bunch of different solutions one is long exposure so they're blurry then they look interesting instead of annoyance uh another one is to take multiple photographs here I am at frank lloyd wright's fallingwater and they're always doing tours they are like never are not having a group there so regardless of how long you stand here there's people here or there's people in the next deck up for those people in the next deck up or there's people you know wandering around other areas so one thing I could do is just take more than one shot here's another shot with people in different position and if that's the case just grab those two shots in I choose tools photo shop load files into photoshopped layers what that means a stack these images into a single photo shopped file and then you could either use the eraser tool or what I would do is use a mask the way you can add a mask to layer that doesn't already have one is at the bottom o...

f the layers panel there's an icon right here that's the layer mask icon I'm gonna click that and when I do watch the top layer in my layers panel you see the mask was added any time you've a mask it controls what part of that particular layer will be visible so all I'm going to do is I'm going to make it so this entire layer is hidden by typing command I to invert it then I'll grab my brush and I'll paint with white because white is going to allow that layer to show up and I just come in here and paint right where the people are so what did that end up doing let's take a look I'm just gonna hide the bottom layer we're just using that tiny little part of the top layer and it's sitting on top so it's obscuring your view of where those people were on the layer below could you select both layers until it average which means oh from the thing where is called the stacking thing yes not going to help all that much with only two photographs if you had three or four photographs then that that could work there is a feature and photo shop where you can turn this into a stack and then there are various modes you can apply it makes for a really good demo but it most of the time there can be some issues it will leave behind whatever is their most commonly meaning that if in three out of five photos there's greens in the background then that's most common and it will use it but if there's a person sitting up there on the top in four out of five pictures there's only one shot without it the function you brought up it's just going to kind of say what's the average of what's in here and the average is a person standing there and only when one of the shots is there no person it doesn't know that I mean it's not smart enough so that feature you brought up makes for a really good demo and on occasion it's a lifesaver but it's not something I try to rely on that's my only technique for that uh let me show you kind of the opposite of what I just did here I'm in southeast asia and there's this walkway that elevator the sun's going down right behind it getting silhouette and in this case if you look at the people some of them are two jumbled together some of them are doing things that aren't necessarily interesting and all that but it's an interesting shape and I just want to improve on it well all I did was I stood there and I took multiple photographs so here's one photo watch the people in the second photo in this photo this guy might start to look a little bit interesting in the next photo this guy in the far right with something on his head I think looks interesting this photo there's a guy on the bicycle I think that looks great over there but also these two people talking look somewhat interesting but I don't like this guy I like looking at a cell phone or something and then I just keep taking more maybe like the bicycle better in that position keep taking mohr and then why not combine those together and choose the best of all pieces so here I'm going to open a photoshopped file and I'll show you where I've done that I haven't optimized the brightness yet so you can still see where they were but I'm going to turn on individual layers so I used those pieces from this image those pieces from another image the east pieces from another mohr from another in just built the image so that then I can get the most ideal where I have the guy with the bicycle the guy with the thing in his head the person that was sitting there looking interesting and you know that kind of stuff all in one frame and it's really the same technique that I used on the falling water image it's just stacking the images and using layer master returned where one shows up and where the others do this one I haven't been careful with the masks and that I haven't been using soft brushes so that you would wouldn't see the edges and I need to go in and refine that and I also need to tweak the brightness in a few areas to make it so it matches but it allows me to end up with a much more refined result compared to just using one picture where I have kind of these random people on it I can kind of construct my view now depends on what this image is being used for his faras if that would be ok or not I mean I'm not going to present that image to national geographic for their publication because they don't like images that have been retouched but if what I'm doing this for us for a fine art image that I'm just going to frame and put on the wall I'm okay with doing that because with fine art photography for me I think of it as like a painting I'm responsible for every little piece that's in there and for me it's okay to make changes and things in there plus all those people were on that bridge they were standing those exact positions just not all at the same time if I could have whistled up to him and spoke their language I don't know the language there I could have possibly directed them in their positions it's not like I'm taking them completely out of context so I don't mind doing that now let's look at one last thing and that is sometimes I can't get the depth of field that I need in a single shot sometimes I have something really close to the camera lens and I have something really far away I need them both to be sharp so if I go in there and used up the field preview I could adjust my amateur I would focus one third of the distance back between the the front most object in the back because with depth of field you get one third in front two thirds behind so that's where the focusing I'd be bringing the aperture number higher and higher and hitting depth filled preview see if both the front and back objects popped into focus when I did that and if I got to the limit of how far I could move that setting I still hit the depth of field preview in one of those two objects is soft I'm like dang that front most objects too close for me to really get that kind of range what I would do is just grab the focus ring on my camera and I would side a little bit towards thie closer object and take one picture then it would slide it a bit towards thie opposite direction and take another picture and I would review those to make sure the front most object is in focus in one and the back most objects is in focus on the other and now here is how you would combine those images together to get all the areas and focus here's my example here I'm in amboy california and I have a broken window that I'm shooting through remember how I looked for frames everywhere well there is my frame well I got that so close to my camera lens that I can't get the sign behind it and focus at the same time it's not that I couldn't it's that I'm shooting hand held and if I set my camera to f twenty two and try to shoot it my shutter speed is going to end up being too slow it's going to be soft but what I decide to do is I frame it up I get my focus ring focused on the glass that I slide it over focuses on the sign and I remember where those two spots are then I can frame up get one spot and focus click quickly slide the zuma are not the simmering the focus ring over click get the other one end up with these two shots to combine them together I select both images choose tools photo shop load files into photo shop layers and that's going to stack the images just like it did with the image of frank lloyd wright's fallingwater and now here's what I need to do to get both areas sharpe I need to select both of these layers so that photo shop knows which layers toe work on I'll simply hold the shift key and click on the layer that's not already selected then we'll zoom up just so you can see the end result uh then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to the edit menu and I'm going to choose auto blend layers I'm going to use default settings and I'm just gonna click okay photo shop is comparing those two layers and it is looking for where it has the most contrast the most contrast will always be words mohr and focus because the things go out of focus it gets soft which is kind of like blurring in anytime you blur that contrast goes down so it was comparing those two layers looking for the highest contrast and it decided to use that much of the one layer and that much of the other layer and then it also did work to make sure that the brightness in the color match all I did was select the two layers I went to the edit menu and I said auto blend layers before after so what we've been going through for the last two days is how I think about using my camera and shooting how do I get in my brain and think like a photographer and it's really about first creating a compelling composition that's why we started they're not worth pressing the shutter if you don't have something good you're pointing that then it's a matter of thinking right about all the different kinds you might encounter the waterfalls the panorama as everything else ah and thinking about your camera settings how do you get everything in focus how do you think about the lens selection you use and all that and then once you've done that how do you optimize it and so that's what we'll be doing this last session in the whole thing together is how I think is a photographer we have questions when a rapper up um not less about questions and then comments people but just really resonating towards you know how you did take everything from you know how to compose an image and draws all the way through it was almost like you're telling a story kind of reeling reeling us in so if you were if you were to say all right you guys we just did this two day course if you only do a couple of things what would you what would you say that if you say if you if you do nothing else just do this and that well the main thing is I would look at my current photography and say where am I really lacking in usually it's starting at the beginning because if you don't have the beginning part which the composition then it's not really we're thinking about the other pieces yet and so I would be starting at the beginning of composition looking at my images saying am I good at that yet and if so that's what if it's not I should say that's what I'd concentrate on before I try to get good at with all the camera settings because who cares if you're taking a technically good picture of a knot all that compelling composition once you get the the composition down then I would ask him I technically capturing this right and if not that's what I would be working on if I think I already got that then I'd be tryingto mohr master the photoshopped parts in once you get all of them put together that's when it really comes together but if you're sitting there tweaking an image that part of it's out of focus on it's supposed to be sharp why even spending the time doing that you need to kind of progress so you should be good using your iphone taking a compelling picture first then you should think about your gear then you should think about photos