Any portait software that?

Will let you take a image of blank background at say f22, one wide open out of focus, and then take a series of portraits at say f22 where the person is in really sharp focus, then use the 3 images to automatically remove the infocus background with the blurry one? Looks like it would produce good looking portraits always in sharp focus with blurry backgrounds especially with multiple subjects.

I am thinking that you are doing what Helicon Focus does. It will take the in focus parts of multiple images and stitch them together.

Google the phrase "focus stacking" and you'll find a lot of information.

However, I'm wondering why you'd want to replace the in-focus background with the blurred background. This can be easily done in-camera.

PixelMagic wrote in post #11096198
Google the phrase "focus stacking" and you'll find a lot of information.

However, I'm wondering why you'd want to replace the in-focus background with the blurred background. This can be easily done in-camera.

Well you can, but it gets tricky with groups, opened up enough to get the background really creamy looking often results in one or more people not being in sharp focus. With software that would do this, you could automatically create great looking shots that didn't have artificial looking blur like is produced with software blurs, in places where you don't have great lighting. I'd think you would get a lot more great shots if you didn't have to worry so much about is everyone's head exactly on the same focal plane.

If there isn't something like this already, thought it might be a fun plug-in/action to write, wasn't really sure what to google for though.

Are you looking at shooting with a solid color/surface background without features but just that you want "soft"? Like a studio background? That would be the thing to do, since it's pretty common to do a simple background select/replace. As far as software, it sounds like it has a lot in common with greenscreening. I know there is some software out there that make it easy to remove/replace a "greenscreen" background, it may be something to look into.

You do realize that this is available in Photoshop itself since CS4. You can refer to the help files which covers it. It starts under the Layer-Align function. Here is a video that gives a quick overview of it.

ssim wrote in post #11096910
You do realize that this is available in Photoshop itself since CS4. You can refer to the help files which covers it. It starts under the Layer-Align function. Here is a video that gives a quick overview of it.

That's the opposite.

I've been working on code to remove clouds and shadows from satellite images being used for a mapping project similar to google earth but for use by the army. It takes multiple images of the same area from different times of the day and removes the clouds/shadows. I was thinking you could take this technology and let's say you are shooting little league team shots for an entire league, you could put your camera on a tripod, take a shot in sharp focus, take a shot out of focus, take all the shots of all the different teams with a wide depth of field, so 3 or 4 rows of players are all in sharp focus. Then just set good background, blurry background, and a list of team shots, and have the software to make a mask of the players by comparing the difference between good background and team picture, so you end up with 3 layers, original background, blurry background, team. Adjust how opaque the blur is to get you as blurry background as you want.

May or may not be useful, I just thought it might be fun to try, but didn't want to waste time if there were a million tools to do the same thing.

I'd expect the best results if you did it yourself. Layer Mask Tricks

PhotosGuy wrote in post #11102064
I'd expect the best results if you did it yourself. Layer Mask Tricks

Sure you can do it your self, but it's pretty time consuming. At least around here, these days, these kinds of shoots, parents want a less than $20 package, 10 kids on a team, that's $200 per team, with each kid getting an 8x10 team, and 5x7 individual, and some wallets. Can't spend a lot of time hand processing images.

I have looked and looked and can't seem to find an auto green screen without the green screen application, so I thought I might take a shot at writing one.

It can be pretty quick once you get used to it.

Where else are they going to go? Raise your prices which will drop off the 'low end', & you'll do less work for the same amount (or more) money. Just one opinion.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #11112738
It can be pretty quick once you get used to it.

For one person, yes, for 10 kids, plus 3 coaches, it gets time consuming.

Where else are they going to go? Raise your prices which will drop off the 'low end', & you'll do less work for the same amount (or more) money. Just one opinion.

This is a for the kids thing, mostly really low income, just starting out families, 5-9 year olds. I don't take the pictures to make money off them, I take them so the kids have a great shot on the wall that looks more like a cover of sports illustrated to encourage them.

I don't take pictures for a living, I write software, and happen to be working on some that can basically do this, it's just written for suse linux running a cray, but I started porting it to nvidia gpu this weekend. I'm really surprised there isn't software like this. I found tons that would take say 20 images of Stonehenge and remove the people looking for the non changing spots, but nothing that left the changing spots removing the background.

OK, I can see that. I do the same thing for my old HS volleyball team so the coach can give the seniors a poster at the end of their last year.