Merging two images to make a better one

question for PS wizards - say you are shooting a group of people and you didn't manage to get a frame where all of their eyes are open. is there any easy way to merge two photos so that i get a composite where everyone looks good? does content aware do this easily?

If you used a tripod or the framing of both images are relatively similar, put the best one on the bottom of the layer stack and the one that has some good replacement faces on top of the base image. Create a black mask to hide all of the some good faces top image and then paint on the mask in white to reveal the good version of the faces that need replacing on the base image. If people moved or the framing changed significantly between shots, just make multiple copies of the second image that has the good replacement faces, one copy for each good face that you want to drop into the base image. This way you can move, rotate, etc., each copy to align and create a natural blend for each replacement face.

kirk

thanks!

You're welcome - hope it helps.

kirk

A variation on this technique (and my preferred method) is not to use the whole second photo for the replacement-face layer. Instead, use the lasso tool to grab a small chunk of the image containing the replacement face and head, and copy just that small section to a new layer. Get the whole head and hair, neck and collar, and a couple inches of "headroom" around the head.

If your two images don't line up - you didn't use a tripod, or people were moving around a fair amount - it'll be easier to line up the replacement by transform/adjust just that new tiny layer, instead of trying to transform the full-size frame to make just that one head line up.

Temporarily set the new face layer to "difference" mode or some other oddball blending mode, this lets you can see through and line up the important part of the replacement head (often the collar). Then transform it back, add your layer mask, and use black/white brushes to do the replacement.

Before you wrap it up, Alt+Click on the mask in the layer thumbnail, this will show just the mask on the screen - so you can see if you missed brushing in anywhere.

excellent advice Nathan!

I just select the eyes, feather selection, copy, paste onto the other photo, convert to smart object, resize. Sometimes you need an adjustment layer to get color/brightness looking right. I can do this very quickly. No need to bother with layers or tripods.