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Help with a manipulation


prisonmike

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Hello guys

I am working on a photo and I hope I could use a little of your help.

Can you tell me what should I do to make everyone seem like they are really on this picture?

Timeless.jpg
 
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peta62

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Hello, I would start with the same face light for all of them and where they look.
 
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IamSam

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Ok, these guys with the X's have different contrast and lighting than the guy in the middle and his background.
Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.09.16 PM.png

This guy is back lit from a light source coming from behind him, the other guys don't have this.
Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.19.08 PM.png

This guy with the X has the opposite light source than the other three.
Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.13.12 PM.png

This image would require a ton of work to make it look as if they were all in the image together.

The way to fix this is to find a better background image that contains lighting that they all could share.
Make sure all of your subjects have the same directional light source.

The contrast could be helped with a Curves adjustment layer on the guys that are not part of the original image.
 

prisonmike

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Ok, these guys with the X's have different contrast and lighting than the guy in the middle and his background.
View attachment 61601

This guy is back lit from a light source coming from behind him, the other guys don't have this.
View attachment 61603

This guy with the X has the opposite light source than the other three.
View attachment 61602

This image would require a ton of work to make it look as if they were all in the image together.

The way to fix this is to find a better background image that contains lighting that they all could share.
Make sure all of your subjects have the same directional light source.

The contrast could be helped with a Curves adjustment layer on the guys that are not part of the original image.

Thank you for your reply. I really wanted to keep this scene, with 4 of my favorite musicians in a bar, and I found this picture with a middle guy in one, so I just decided to add the other three. I guess I will either search for another background, or try to fix them this way. Now could you tell me how can I make two guys on sides seem to be lesser quality?
 

IamSam

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Thank you for your reply. I really wanted to keep this scene, with 4 of my favorite musicians in a bar, and I found this picture with a middle guy in one, so I just decided to add the other three. I guess I will either search for another background, or try to fix them this way.
Take the guy on the right and flip him horizontally. Then switch the two men with X's.
Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 10.59.09 PM.png

Now could you tell me how can I make two guys on sides seem to be lesser quality?
I already did. I said use a Curves adjustment layer (clipped) on each of the men that are not part of the original image.
 

peta62

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Take the guy on the right and flip him horizontally......

This is an interesting issue, I am not sure how much it is technical and how much moral. I remember the idea of my friend to flip horisontaly night picture where you can obviously see some constellations. Yes, the picture would look better, but everybody with some night sky knowledge would immediately label it as a fake. I am afraid it could be the same here, although I recognise only Leonard Cohen, I think these are well known people and majority of faces are not symmetrical, so whoever knows the person would probably either recognise the flip or consider the picture unnatural. Just my opinion.
 

IamSam

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This is an interesting issue, I am not sure how much it is technical and how much moral. I remember the idea of my friend to flip horisontaly night picture where you can obviously see some constellations. Yes, the picture would look better, but everybody with some night sky knowledge would immediately label it as a fake. I am afraid it could be the same here, although I recognise only Leonard Cohen, I think these are well known people and majority of faces are not symmetrical, so whoever knows the person would probably either recognise the flip or consider the picture unnatural. Just my opinion.
I think I understand what your saying and I would agree to some point.

This is an issue of making the image work and not morality. The OP can leave the image as it is and it will look fake or he can or he can do what he needs to to make the lighting work.

I think you have agreed with me in post #2....
peta62 said:
Hello, I would start with the same face light for all of them and where they look.
 

peta62

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@IamSam - a little misunderstanding. I absolutely agree with all your technical advice, I even see your reason why to flip it. The only thing I am afraid is, if you flip somebody's face, whether or not it is still the same person ( OP wants to have his four most liked musicians ), since we do not have symmetric faces, so I think flipping the face ( as flipping constellation ) may change the face too much. Just try to look at somebody you know well in the mirror, the more asymmetric face he/she has the more you will see what I mean. But the bottom line is there was neither criticism nor raising any potential moral problem ( from the point of view of being correct ) in what I wrote ( the fact I am not native English speaker as you can see may contribute ), just a thing that I think should be considered.

Edit : I think I should have used ethics/custom/authenticity instead of moral.
 
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peta62

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One more thing to the original topic. I am afraid there is a huge difference of the focal length in photos of particular persons. That makes it, in my opinion, almost impossible to blend them into one realistic picture.
 

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