Merge Photos

A couple of summers ago, my grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. They had a party with the whole, huge family. They had a picture taken, but it was taken in 3 shots because of how big the group was. The pictures were printed separately and framed together and it sits on my grandparent's piano.

My grandma's family has been collecting family pictures for a CD. My grandma wanted the pictures from their anniversary party included, but she wanted them combined. And boy, was it complicated. When I got the top lined up, the angle at the bottom was different and didn't line up. So I had to rebuild legs, shoulders, shoes, shirts, floor, and all kinds of stuff along two merge lines. Now I'll have to get it printed for my grandparents.

Color Shift

Over time, the color in photos can shift. Here is one of me as a little girl that really had bad color shift and I was able to bring back lots of detail.

Reduce Noise

I got married shortly before it became common to get a digital copy of wedding photos. I scanned in all my photos for backup, and then I was using this photo on a digital scrapbook page. It was really grainy, especially on our faces. Wedding pictures are especially important to look fabulous, right? I reduced the noise, or the grainy look and got rid of some speckles, which are common problems in scanned photos. Noise can be a problem in digital photos, as well.

Scanned Color

Color photos present a different kind of problem than black and white ones. The colors can look dull and muted. Restoring them can really make the color pop. Besides fixing the color on this one, I also fixed a few scratches.

Scratches

One common problem with scanned photos is that the originals may be scratched, folded, torn, or have other physical damage. I love this photo of my parents, but the original was quite small, and had a big fold and some strange speckles all over. 

Old Black and White

I absolutely LOVE looking at old photos of my family. I scanned a bunch of them for a family history album I did recently. These old photos often lose a lot of detail as they age because of fading. This particular photo was a scan of a print, so there was even more detail lost.

Backdrop

I took this beautiful photo of my friend's baby. I used a homemade white backdrop, but you can see plenty of wrinkles on it. With his white onesie, just whitening the backdrop didn't look super. So I cleaned up the backdrop and added a beautiful, soft damask pattern to it. Love!

Multiple Textures

I added a few different textures to this photo: a couple of different grungy ones, and one that changes the color as well. I mounted a large print of this photo and it hangs above my piano. Love it!

Texture

Textures add some interest to photos. There are so many great textures available. This one adds a little bit of grunge and looks great with a vignette to darken the edges.

Sepia

If you want just a hint of color instead of straight black and white, sepia is a good way to go. I can do different hues, depending on the photo. Old photos look great with a slightly more green hue, but I love this dark, warm hue for newborns.

Black and White

Black and white photos have a classic, clean feel to them. I especially like black and white or sepia treatments for newborn photos. This evens out the blotchy, red skin that is so common with newborns.

Head Swap

My friend had family pictures taken before Christmas to use on their cards. The baby was not cooperating, though. They were able to get a good one of him by himself, so I put his head from the individual picture onto the family one. This was pretty complicated because the two pictures had different lighting, a slightly different color cast, and the family photo wasn't quite as sharp. I kind of cringed as I blurred the head to match the rest of the family. I was happy with how it turned out, and my friend was happy to have a good picture without another photo shoot.

Body Swap

One of the biggest frustrations with taking pictures of a bunch of kids together is trying to get just one picture where everyone looks good. That was my problem on Halloween. I was playing around with some editing and merged a few. I only changed the three boys on the front row, but I used a couple of different ones for my final copy.

Remove Distractions

I took pictures of my brother's family with this fabulous rock wall as a background. I know lots of people use this wall for pictures. Unfortunately, someone spray painted all over the wall. I couldn't find a good spot without any paint that would work, so I removed it afterwards. No one would ever know it was there without seeing the original first.

Color Match

I was taking pictures of my kids for a Father's Day present and my sister came over with her kids. I offered to take pictures of her kids for Father's Day, but my sister was concerned about her daughter's choice of clothes. She likes to pick her clothes herself, but the red shirt just didn't match the cute skirt. I told her not to worry - I can fix that.

Wide Eyed

We had this photo taken at a Christmas party. I have a tendency to open my eyes too wide when I'm getting my picture taken, so I look bug eyed. If I don't feel like I'm squinting for pictures, it won't look good. I closed up my eyes just enough to look more natural, got rid of a bunch of blemishes, and reduced the red in my son's cheeks.

Glasses Glare

I took this photo, but I haven't had much experience with glasses yet, so I didn't think to check them. Yes, I caught some glare. Luckily, with the help of my trusty clone and healing tools, I made it less noticable. I also reduced the double chin. 

Clean Shirt

My sister had some fuzzies on her shirt, so I got rid of those, along with my other standard retouching.

Basic Retouching

This is a photo I took for my sister's family. The color was a little cool, so I added some warmth. I brightened the photo and added contrast. Then I did some basic healing on the adults.