Perfect group fotos - tipps and tricks?

[monkel]

I'm new to Affinity Photo, but as I didn't find the topic, I hope this is the right place to share and ask.

I recently had to work on a group photo with about 20 people. I took 10 pictures of the group in the span of a few seconds to optimize for the chance of good facial expressions (trying to keep the framing fairly consistent).

Then I looked for an easy way to combine these photos into the perfect group photo in affinity photo. This is what I did:

Pre-Work

• renamed the photos to 01.jpg to 10.jpg
• looked at each face in turn, going through all ten photos and took note which face to use

Affinity Photo

• File - New Stack ... - Add 01-10 (automatically align)
• Expand the live stack group
• for each face in turn
  • select all stack layers except the face I noted down to keep
  • use an eraser brush with soft edges, approximately half the size of a face
  • delete the face area to reveal only the face I want to keep
• when done, I had my group shot with the "optimum" face selection

There were some artefacts visible at higher zoom levels, but because this was for a web page only noticeable when you have a direct comparison.

Now to the questions:

• What could I have done better or easier?
• Is live stack recommended for this or should I just use regular layers?

[John Rostron]

I think the stack procedure is the way to go, especially as it offers alignment. Having created the stack, which merge option did you use? The default is   median and would probably be best for you as it would work with the erased faces. If it does not, then try maximum which should ignore the erased areas.

John

[monkel]

Thanks for the feedback. I used the default "median" and it seemed to work ok. I had some issues where people had moved significantly - like turning to the side, but I could fudge those.

I just checked out maximum and got some better contrasts on faces, but some visible hard corners at the transitions that I wouldn't have wanted, but perhaps when working from it from the start the result would be better. 

[firstdefence]

I would learn to engage the participants more, although I appreciate it is tough to get everybody's attention. Here's an amazing tip that really works: Have a very attractive male and female stood behind you looking at the group, I kid you not, all eyes will be looking your way with smiles and the group will be like putty in your hands, an old wedding photographer told me about this and actually showed me when I went to help him out, the models were like catnip lol!

[monkel]

Good tip if I were doing this (semi-) professionally, but this was at a parents-teacher conference, the choices were limited... ;)

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

Here's an amazing tip that really works: Have a very attractive male and female stood behind you looking at the group, I kid you not, all eyes will be looking your way with smiles...

Very important to have the pair, otherwise you get a photo of smiling women and angry men or vice versa. You can see this out in public if you look at who a married couple is looking at.

[casterle]

3 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Have a very attractive male and female stood behind you looking at the group,

I learn so much in these forums, but a tip on group psychology was an interesting surprise. Thank you!

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, monkel said:

Good tip if I were doing this (semi-) professionally, but this was at a parents-teacher conference, the choices were limited...

Perhaps a cute puppy would work as well?

[monkel]

Is there anyway to automate or ease the process like in Adobe Photomerge?

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/using/guided-mode-photomerge.html#use_photomerge_group_shot

 

[firstdefence]

Morning @monkel that process is a semi automagical feature of PS Elements, even then it's still a hands-on affair and still depends on the skill of the editor and the quality of the images. There is no substitute for taking a good image with minimum editing, else a few hours of focused work are ahead of you. Affinity can photo merge and can create panorama's but it can't automatically fix heads on people because that is just such a unique choice in a photo and not even automagically wizard driven features can select heads facing forward, smiling or not blinking then replace them.

 

[monkel]

I don't mind the work when there's nothing I can do about the material I have to work with and don't expect the impossible, just looking for the path that promises the best results with the least necessary input.

Years ago I used to do it with a Microsoft research tool called group shot (which was pretty simple and yielded great results) but it's no longer available.

Also affinity photo seems to have other batch processing workflows like HDR or focus stacking and I am primarily interested to learn if there's anything that would have eased my task more (which itself is done, but for the future).

Edited May 11, 2019 by monkel

[monkel]

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

Perhaps a cute puppy would work as well?

Sorry, no pets on school grounds.