Help with stacking 4 images (from Special Olympics)

[theantiquetiger]

I have never been good at stacking (or much else in PS). I want to stack these 4 images, showing the running in four poses in one frame.

I am thinking the frame is too small since I shot it in portrait and not landscape.

Feel free to do it yourself, you can get the large size images on the link.

stack4 by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

stack3 by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

stack2 by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

stack1 by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

stack5 by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

[Iguanasan]

This would not lend itself to stacking... that would be something you would do if you had the exact same background and had the person moving through the frame. A Photoshop expert might be able to build a single background from that but it would take a long, long time.

The best solution here, IMHO, is a quadtych. If you use LightRoom you can do something like that through the print module... here's a tutorial on how to do it: Creating a Triptych in Lightroom - Digital Photography School

[theantiquetiger]

Thanks for the link Iggy. I do realize these images are not the best, very soft in his face, but I may try your suggestion with some others.

I didn't think it could be done.

[Iguanasan]

Well, you could probably do it with the bottom three as the background is mostly the same. But since he's always centred in the frame he would overlap himself more than seeing multiple "people" on the background and so I don't think it would work well. Your best bet would have been a wider shot with the camera on a tripod so the background doesn't change and then take 3 or 4 shots as he moves through the frame.

As for the technical issues, while important, not nearly as important as capturing the moment. He'll probably love having some photos of the event and while we, as photographers, notice the technical bits, he likely won't give a hoot about it.

[Runmonty]

I have done a bit of stacking in the past and agree with Iggy that there is insufficient separation between them. It is best to keep the camera in a static position (and further away) so the persons placement in the frame varies more (i.e. more time between images) to be effective.

Having said that, I love a challenge and will have a play when I get home from work tonight. I don't expect to get anything usable, but you will be the first to know if I do.

[JAS_Photo]

What about a sort compositing to put the boy in the photo several times? Not sure of the arrangement but the transparency could also be varied so you could stack him a bit on top of himself if that makes any sense?

[theantiquetiger]

I added a fifth image to the original post that may help. It is of him in landscape at the starting line

[Runmonty]

It was hard to match the backgrounds but this is just a 10 minute play. These are low resolution. If you like I can put the psd files in dropbox, so you have a high resolution version and you can also see the layers and the build up of the images.

[Runmonty]

In future if you wish to try this again, it is much easier if the camera angle and settings don't change. There were differing apertures and focal lengths with these, and that made the background matching very difficult for a quick edit

[Iguanasan]

Wow! I'm impressed you could put together what you had. Nice PS skills!