4 Generations

[CLKunst]

I've got something to bounce off of you all. A woman in my husband's office gave me 4 pictures of people in her family and asked me to cobble them together into one. The oldest gentleman has passed away and his son wished they had done a family portrait but never did. The pictures were all from different places and with different levels of fineness, quality and clarity so I know there are some deficiencies I can't even hope to compensate for but what do you think of the outcome? Is it acceptable? Are there any suggestions for smoothing it out? Does it look balanced? Your comments are always appreciated.

[Lava Lamp]

I've got something to bounce off of you all. A woman in my husband's office gave me 4 pictures of people in her family and asked me to cobble them together into one. The oldest gentleman has passed away and his son wished they had done a family portrait but never did. The pictures were all from different places and with different levels of fineness, quality and clarity so I know there are some deficiencies I can't even hope to compensate for but what do you think of the outcome? Is it acceptable? Are there any suggestions for smoothing it out? Does it look balanced? Your comments are always appreciated.

This is a tough one. I think this may be acceptable for your friend, who isn't a photographer or Photoshop expert, but I don't think it's quite a "professional" level. I'm not sure that even the most skilled photoshopper could overcome some of what you have there with the varying quality of the pics. Couple of specific thoughts: 1) I think the older gentleman is a little too small in proportion to the others and looks a little more "cut-out" (especially the left side of his head); 2) he is also a good bit darker thant he others, which may just reflect differences in skin tone, but I think he may be a little too dark and also blends too muchinto the shadows; 3) converting to black and white might help minimize the different clarity in all the pics; 4) perhaps adding "film grain" if you have that feature in your editor, might help make the pic more uniform.

Good luck. Hope I don't sound harsh.

[Chunk]

I've got something to bounce off of you all. A woman in my husband's office gave me 4 pictures of people in her family and asked me to cobble them together into one. The oldest gentleman has passed away and his son wished they had done a family portrait but never did. The pictures were all from different places and with different levels of fineness, quality and clarity so I know there are some deficiencies I can't even hope to compensate for but what do you think of the outcome? Is it acceptable? Are there any suggestions for smoothing it out? Does it look balanced? Your comments are always appreciated.

You've been given a tough job. The image of the oldest guy may be too small comparing head sizes and the kid may be too big for the same reason. I might try intentionally degrading the quality of the kid's shot to try and make him blend better with the others. The color balance of the different parts seem off but it would be really hard to tell how to correct it without knowing the skin tones of the individuals. I don't think you will be able to get it to look too much better than you already have it.
As an alternative you might try something like this (without the overlapping parts from the other subjects). With the seperation of the subjects, I don't think their differences would be as important. Sorry for this VERY rough example but I wasn't sure how to explain it in words.

[LeeIs]

wow. This one is extremely tough. I agree with almost everything said above. Specially, the suggestion to go for the B&W because that is your best bet. You can even make it a duotone like sepia or what afterwards.

The way to combat the noise is to apply a small bit of Blur then sharpen it. It's dirty but it works a bit. There are also apps that get rid of noise automatically.

Good luck man. This one is really tough. As it stands right now, it doesn't look like one unit. I think you should seriously consider the b&w unless ofcoarse you could get better photos from them.

[dbutler]

CL, I have full confidence in your abilities and I think you are going to pull this off in style. I agree with the B&W suggestion. With the channel mixer, you may be able to come up with a good mix to help with the various skin tones. I think Lava is right: Not even the most experience photoshopper may be able to come up with anything that will meet YOUR level of standards, but given that she probably isn't a photo buff or expert, you will most certainly come up with something that she will find acceptable.

[CLKunst]

Thanks for weighing in on this everyone. It is a challenge wrapped in a challenge. All are good ideas thanks for the suggestions.

Lava - Good ideas unfortunately the image quality really steams downhill in a hurry as soon as I try to do anything but smooth and sharpen. With the exception of the little boy's "School picture" these are all pulled from snap shots with lots iof nasty grain to begin with. Black and white just brings out all of the flaws and leaves nothing to hide behind.

Chunk - I started out with your idea of separating everyone off into their own private bubbles but the dead space created in the middle, was well, dead. Which is what sent me to try this stacking of layers. The other major problem is that with the exception of the little boy all of these people are standing NEXT to other people in their original pictures and have WEIRD edges that really limit what I can do with them even when cutting them out of their scenes and oval/fade and crop them into something else. It just looks awkward no matter which way I slice it.

Lee - Yep I know that trick and I performed it, several times, with this. You're looking at a significant improvement on the original.

D - Thank you for your confidence. I think you are right that it will probably be good enough for my friend. I always appreciate the added perspective provided by this board.

AND here is the capper, last night I chatted with the lady who asked me to do this and pointed out that this was far from perfect and better pictures would yield a better result. That's when she told me that she plans to take the picture I make and have it scanned into an engraving machine to have it engraved onto a heart shaped gold piece about the size of a half dollar. Ay caramba!!!