Merge aspects of many pics

[tonylinde]

As per section rules, several "dumb" questions coming up! I find the hardest thing with Photoshop is knowing the right terms: I'm happy looking stuff up on the web or in the couple of books I've bought but not knowing what some process or feature is called makes it near impossible. So, I'll try to describe in general terms what I'd like to achieve and hope someone here can point out the right terminology.

I have taken several hundred photographs, up to 200 each from eight different viewpoints at our local market. What I wanted to achieve was a merging of all the pictures at each viewpoint so that I had a slight blurring of the fixed features - stalls, surrounding buildings - as I overlapped them, with a merging of all the people coming and going. So, I started from the first pic, added the next at 10% opacity, moved around to line up the fixed features, then the next and so on. By the time I got to only 12 pics added, the people in the first few had disappeared because of all the following pics layered over them - which, I know, I should have expected. I then tried adjusting the opacity on the layers so the early ones were at 95% and the later ones at 10% but this would only work for a few pics, certainly not up to 200.

What I want to do now, is: as I add each photograph as a layer, to select the background and fixed features and make them either wholly transparent or 10% opacity. Then to select one or more people or groups from the crowd in that shot and make them either 90% or 100% opacity. Finally to make all the rest of the pic not in those selections wholly transparent.

So, my questions are:

1. can I select an area in one layer and then save the shape of that selection and apply it to the next layer added? this way I can select and save the fixed features of each pic relatively easily.
2. if I can do this, can I change that shape just for certain layers? that way, I can include or exclude certain background features if people are in front of them.
3. can I have more than one selection in a layer and apply different changes (eg, changing opacity) to each selection? so, the fixed features get 10% opacity, the people I want to keep get 90% opacity and the rest of the pic gets 0% opacity.
4. should I merge the layers or flatten the image as I go along or will Photoshop be okay with having 200+ layers in one picture?

Finally, am I asking the right questions? Given what I want to achieve, am I going about it the right way or can someone suggest a better approach.?

Many thanks in advance,
Tony.

 

[colleague]

you can go to file -automatic -photomerge and take alle your photo's from 1 viewpoint
photoshop will line out every pic on a different layer with a layer mask

if you click on the layermask-icon you can paint black what has to be invisssible or you can paint white to be vissible
but you can also paint with white and opacity 10% if that part has to be 10 % vissible

here is an example with 2 photo's , and a selection painted 50 % white to make person half vissible

 

[tonylinde]

Many thanks, colleague; what a brilliant feature. Have tried that and got an interesting set of layers and masks. Will work with that on my own for a bit to try and modify it to what I want. Will doubtless be back

 

[tonylinde]

'Fraid I've not got anywhere with this. The screen looks like:



(Woah! It looks a lot bigger than that. I'm hoping the image will expand to the right size when I post.)

How do I change the mask applied to that layer so that it shows more of the underlying photo (I've tried painting over with white and black and it just puts white or black lines over the part of the image showing but does nothing to the mask.)

Thanks again.

Tony.

 

[tonylinde]

Sorry, one more. Can I change the view of that layer so that I can see all of the underlying photograph but with the mask highlighted or outlined in some way?

t.

 

[tonylinde]

Please ignore the foregoing. I did work it out - just wasn't selecting the brush colours correctly (guess that's why I'm in the newbies section).

New screenshot (painted with greys as well):



Still going to take a lot of work.

And I'd like the answer to the second question: Can I change the view of that layer so that I can see all of the underlying photograph but with the mask highlighted or outlined in some way? (So I can see what I'm painting before I paint it.)

Ta,
t.

 

[colleague]

the best you can do is to select the bottom layer and use this as reference and fill that mask with 100 % white

 

[Barb Schaarschmidt]

Isn't there an outline mode with masks? I'm not really sure, but I seem to remember something like this in class.