30 people portrait, has anybody tried photoshop's photomerge for this

[alain_martinez]

Hello,

 

In a couple of weeks, I'll be taking a large family portrait at a 90th birthday

party. The challange is that she wants 30 people in the shot. I've taken

pictures like this before with a wide angle and it looks like crap. This time I

want to do something different where I can see more detail in their faces.

 

has anyone photographed a large group like this before? Can you share your

experiences?

 

has anyone attempted taking several pictures and merging them with photomerge?

How did it look?

 

Thank you in advance for your response.

[fotografz]

How big will you need to print this?

 

What are you using to shoot it with: Digital? How many meg? Film? 35mm? MF?

 

Merging is tricky with a group shot.

 

30 people should be doable in a single shot IF you can get up high and shoot down, plus

get back enough to use a normal lens.

 

The last group shot I did was of the entire guest list and wedding party to be printed

12"X17".

[kiva]

Alan, more info if possible... does the location allow for outside photography?

 

Or, must it be inside because of lack of mobility for some participants?

 

If inside then how big is the room available?

[stephen dohring]

I wouldn't use photoshop, best to just get the shot from an elevated angle to avoid blocked faces and shadows. A Tripod would be good for multiple shots and eyeblinks that can be corrected. or Three rows of 10 should come out ok with a WA angle lens, back row elevated, front row kneeling.

[kiva]

oops, sorry Marc, we were typing at the same time.

 

A group of 30 sounds very doable without the tension of photomerge. I'd want to get myself a bit higher than the group (small ladder) so the participants lift their heads up ... I find it especially helpful for the older participants because it lifts their heads and pulls the shoulders back.

[edrodgers]

You will get much more resolution with photomerge, but it is a royal pain to make it look good. Taking shots of groups like this introduces movement to the solution, and will cause complications that will have to be corrected manually. If you can't get a higher resolution camera, I'd say photomerge is a good option, but it's a lot of work.

[jason hinds - columbus, oh]

Here's another option, albeit a rather unusual one...

 

Take individual shots of each person (ie - portrait-style head shots). Then, create a blank canvas in photoshop and tile all the images and format to the size you'd like. Example - a 24X30" print would give you 30 headshots at 4X6 each (6 across, 5 down). Plenty of detail in the faces, plus it would make an interesting conversation piece.

 

If you're looking to capture them all as one whole group, I agree with the posters above - get high above them on a ladder, and stack them about 3 rows deep (maybe 4 depending on how high you can get).

 

Good luck!

[picturesque]

You won't see more detail in people's faces unless you are printing the final image at sizes bigger than about 11x14. Up to 8x10, your average digital DSLR is probably providing all the detail possible to see at that size. Either that or something else is wrong. I've photographed groups up to about 60 people with my 8 megapixel 20D and my wide angle 16-35mm zoom. For 8x10s, they look good.

[alain_martinez]

Sorry for the lack of detail....here it goes.

 

The place is indoors, with beautiful posibilities to go outdoors, but it's at 1pm. I'll be shooting digital with a 5D and the print size they want may vary. Hopefully they all get an 11x14 or bigger.

 

Thanks for the tip on the ladder. That's how I do headshots. For some reason people look much better when they look at something higher, and the beauty is that in the picture it does not look elevated.

 

keep 'em coming, and thanks

[cjogo]

It is how you design the shot --find stairs or build a set with chairs<div></div>

[cjogo]

The tighter you build your rows --the larger the faces will be portrayed--even in a small 5X7 ....the front row should be ideally > 7-10 people max. Group shots have been a specialty, of ours, since the early 80's. From 4 to 400 ..we pre-design every group shot. Organized by height, first. We do many corporate groups, all week long, with a time line of 12-15 minutes for 30-50 attendees. There is a science ...

[cjogo]

Resizing :::::::<div></div>

[picturesque]

Well--if it is a family portrait, that means you'll have kids of varying ages. As C Jo points out, you want the rows tightly packed, to minimize the distance between the difference in head size from front rows to back. Added to the use of a longer focal length (longer meaning between 35mm and 50mm), you keep the wide angle distortion to a minimum. Back to the kids, you can usually have the smaller ones sitting in one row in front of a row of people sitting in chairs, and then have another row of people standing in back of chairs. If you need another row, have people standing on chairs, although you should put the young and able in that row (usually the young men in the group). This is the easiest way to organize a group of that size. Four rows would fill an 8x10 proportion better, but three rows would also work. For this, you don't necessarily have to have a ladder.

 

A ladder would be good if you can't have rows of varying heights. And if you can get your varying heights using found levels, such as existing stairs, natural rise in the ground, looking down from a second story, etc., then great. If not, have the chairs ready, or rent risers.

[peter_dehart]

I have used photomerge in Photoshop with good success for large groups (I have done

groups as large as 100). It is my method of choice for choirs that are spread across a

stage. What I have found works well for me is:

 

-Take many photos as you pan across the group so you have multiple photos to choose

from for merging.

 

-Shoot in manual to keep the exposure the same. You still may need to tweak the

individual images with levels or curves.

 

-Use a tripod with the camera leveled. Pan the camera for the shots with the people

centered in the middle third of the viewfinder horizontally.

 

I do the merge (keep indivifual images in separate layers) and then fine tune the edges of

each segment with the erase tool. Lowering the opacity of selected layers can help

determine what to erase. Total time spent is under 2 hours.

 

This works best if you are making panoramic prints that have a much higher than normal

aspect ratio (Ex: 5"x20" print). That is when the extra resolution can help. A 4"x18" print

made up of three 4"x6" images would have 3 times the resolution as a single shot

enlarged to 12"x18" and then cropped. I agree with Nadine that if you are doing standard

sized prints such as 8x10 or 11x14, photomerge probably isn't worth the effort.

 

Peter<div></div>

[fotografz]

Okay Alain, you're shooting with a 5D, so no problem. Plenty of resolution for a 30 people

group. Just get high and use as normal focal length as you can depending on how far you

can get from the group and how high.

 

My partner uses a 5D for larger groups than that and we make 13X19 or larger prints of

them.

 

The trick is in the processing.

 

Shoot RAW and open in Adobe Camera RAW. At the bottom left there is a check box

marked "Show Work Flow Options" click on it and 4 settings will appear. Here's how to set

them:

 

Space: set your working color space here (like RGB 1998 if that's what you use)

 

Depth: 16 bit/ Channel

 

Size: set the maximum which for the 5D RAW file is 4096 X 6144 (25.2 Meg)

 

Resolution: 360 (if you are going to use an Epson InkJet printer)

 

After correcting the RAW file and you open it in Photoshop, it will be a 144 meg 11.3" X

17" tiff file which will easily make a 16" X 20" print or smaller.

 

The reason you do upsizing in ACR is that the interpolation process is working with the

maximum digital RAW data.

 

Attached images below are the kind of 100 to 200 people group shots we do at many

weddings now because I'm using a MF digital back. You can clearly see every face even on

an 8X10. But a 5D is full frame with 10 meg and is quite capable of handling a group

1/4th the size of some we shoot ... especially if you use the RAW processing technique

outlined above.

 

Best of luck.<div></div>

[jimstrutz]

Here's a 68 person shot from the last Strutz Family Christmas. It was taken with a 20D, but I left way too much margin on the sides, so I had to crop it a bunch, leaving about 5.5 megapixels left for printing a 12-18" print at 160 dpi. I was surprised by the quality. The lower half is a 100% crop taken from it, although there is a lot of JPG artifacts in this copy of a copy. 30 people with a 5D ought to be easy.<div></div>

[conraderb]

alain - 30 is no problem at all.

 

get up high. stack people a few rows deep.

 

try to get a lot of light and stop down to f8 or f11 for a nice sharp image...