Substitute people in photo

[cspitser]

steve, I couldn't find a way st start a new topic..

I have six photos or our family. I want to choose one as the main one and then substitute certain people from the other 5 photos. Where can I find a step-by step tutorial to do this. Baby steps.

Cliff

[Steve Grisetti]

If you've got Photoshop Elements 2019 (or a fairly recent version) go to the Guided Edits and check out the Photomerge Edits. It sounds like Photomerge Compose or Photosmerge Group Shot are exactly what you're looking for.

[Peru]

steve, I couldn't find a way st start a new topic..

I'm not Steve, but here is how to start a new thread:

1) Go to index.php and click on a forum.
2) Click on new topic.

I've move this to Photoshop Elements for you.

[Peru]

Hi Steve,

That was a quick response! I just barely moved it here.

[Steve Grisetti]

Actually, we bumped into each other. I was trying to move it but you got to it first!

[cspitser]

I have photoshop elements 15. I went to guided edits, photomerge. Then I can't go any further.

[Steve Grisetti]

These are Guided Edits, Cliff. You just select one and it walks you through the process step-by-step.

Try one and see.

[cspitser]

I still have a problem getting a photomerge project started in pse15. Here is the method I am using. I’m sure it is not optimal, so please tell me where I am wrong.

For our family Christmas picture I had a friend take 7 shots very quickly of the family with 12 people. None of the 7 had all 12 people smiling. But by merging, I can make a picture with all 12 smiling. I open pse15 and I choose <photo editor> then I choose <guided> and then <photomerge> then I choose <open> from the menu in the upper left. I then choose 5 of the seven which will have at least one of each person smiling.
After I choose those 5 to open, they appear in the photo bin. The complete file name does not show (can I fix this) so I need to put the mouse cursor over the picture to see the complete file name. I then select all 5 pictures and then click on the <group shot> icon. Then I get a prompt that says “select all” I choose that and I get a screen that has the photo bin at the bottom and then two side by side windows. The left window has one of the pictures from the photo bin and the right window says “drag a photo from the photo bin and drop it here to set the base image” I choose the picture that had the most people smiling. Then, I choose another picture from the photo bin that has one or more of the non-smiling people that are smiling. I just click once on that photo and it is put into the left window. Then I go to the right of the screen and click on the <pencil tool>

Then I use the pencil tool to mark one of the people in the left screen. As soon as I do that, the image of that person is copied to the right screen. I repeat this until all non-smiling people have been fixed in the right side window. Then I press the “X” in the extreme upper right corner. I get the message “do you want to save changes” I choose “Yes”. It saves the changed file to a “PSD” file. Then I open that psd file and do a “save as” to a jpg file.

I’m sure there must be a better way.

[Steve Grisetti]

It sounds right to me, Cliff! In fact, it sounds like a relatively simple solution to a very complicated challenge.