Composited Light, Motors, Action Stunt Show

Scottwdw

Scottwdw

Member
I know this is old hat to you Photoshop people. ; Apple Aperture, like Adobe Lightroom, does not support layers. ; OnOne Software came out last year with both a stand-alone and plugin for Aperture and Lightroom called Perfect Layers. ; In fact, I took a couple of photo series last year at Pixelmania knowing this software existed. ;

You know how it goes, I never got around to buying it. ; Then I was lucky enough to win a copy of OnOne's Perfect Photo Suite 6 from a blog I follow which I installed today. The Suite includes Perfect Layers 2 and a host of other plugins. Well, it was not as intuitive as I thought it would be. ; I had to view their tutorials a few times and then it hit me...I had to go step by step. ; Guess I am a bit spoiled by Aperture which lets you start anywhere and go anywhere. ; So, once I got that through my stubborn head, I was able to put these two composites together.

i-RkM7htj-L.jpg


First time I did this I forgot to mask in the car's reflection in the glass. ; I decided to leave the camera truck in only once. My camera's buffer filled up so I missed the car exiting fully at the end of the jump. ;
i-jXWtmMf-L.jpg


There's a lot more to the Suite I need to explore and will be more careful to follow instructions to the letter in the future.

Perfect Layers 2 is a FREE download today. ; Again, it works as a plugin for Lightroom, Elements and Aperture AND as a stand alone. ; Go here to download: http://www.ononesoftware.com/free/
 
Hey - good to see others playing around with this technique! ; I actually did one at L,M,A during the last winter Pixelmania, which I had posted way back then:
original.jpg


And had first done it the year before with fewer frames at a slower frame rate with a motorcycle:
original.jpg


I actually had done one with the jumping guy too, but I had too much focal length, and could only get a few frames of him in the middle of the building, so it wasn't as effective as yours.

Nice work!
 
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As long as we're playing "I did it first", here's my entry from the first Pixelmania in 2009. ; I used a simple stitching program to create a panorama of the "backwards" jump.


Backwards jump panorama

That said, I like what you guys have done. ; Now I'm thinking about sitting in an uncrowded corner of the stands with a tripod to gather shots to do more of this stuff.
 
Both of you inspired me to try this. ; Still need to work on them. ; Dennis, I have a series just like that which might work with a stitching program. ; Will have to give it a try.
 
Great job by all of you guys. You all make me want to try this too, but like John, I always forget about it when I am shooting. Need to do more burst shooting so I will have the material to do this.
 
Yep Dennis - you and I both churned out those shots in the 09 Pixelmania! ; Fun stuff. ; I would definitely like to remember to shoot more - those are some of the shots I keep forgetting to do when I'm up there - like the ND daytime long exposures I wanted to do more of.
 
"ELinder" said:
Maybe we should start a Pixelmania thread: Shots I want to get but always forget about.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't every good Pixelmaniac already have that list compiled? ; ; Now, remembering to consult that list while at WDW is another story entirely
 
And remembering to BRING the pieces needed for the planned shots. ; I can see consulting my list and seeing 'do ND400 slow shutter shots' and think "excellent! ; I wrote it down to remind myself! ; Let me just grab my ND400 filter out of my bag, and...ah...where's my ND400 filter?"
 
Justin, you make a checklist and pack the night before your trip. That's how I do it after leaving a tripod home once. ; ::)

I re-did the falling stunt man sequence. ; Missed around the antique sign so still need to get better at selection.

i-98fDZZ8-XL.jpg
 
How are you doing your selections, Scott? ; Just comparing methods...when I shoot these, I fire off multiple frames from the tripod, then in post, I simply stack each of the successive photos as layers, one over the next - with the bottom of the jump at the bottom of the layers, and the top of the jump at the top of the layers. ; I then erase out the layers in tier-style - in your example, each layer would be erased just below the falling man. ; I use simple horizontal lines, and erase out straight across the scene...since all layers match exposure and such. ; Then, if for any reason there are some areas where the layers don't line up perfectly, like if wind was blowing a flag or something else moved between frames, I erase out those spots so it looks uniform. ; It's fairly simple and fast - no cutting-and-pasting and trying to align free-floating cuts.
 
Yep, that's how I am doing it. ; I need to be more careful to examine the image before saving it. ; In this case, i needed to go back in and clean up the sign behind the guy to line up the lines. ; Not used to working in layers but I am sure it will come to me.
 
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