I occasionally use the Statistics
function in Photoshop to blend multiple images in order to get rid of the
distractions that I don’t want like people or vehicles. Up until now, this has been a real pain to
do. I would identify the images in
Lightroom but would have to open Photoshop, go into the Statistics function,
use the browse function in there to select the images and then it would run
everything in one go. This was not a
convenient way to go and the output image then needed to be manually added to
Lightroom which is not handy.
It turns out that there is a better
way. This may have been in Photoshop all
along and I never knew or it could have been a recent addition. Either way, it is there and I shall now use
it for future projects. I have even
created a Photoshop action to cover the process and assigned a function key so
it will now do the heavy lifting without my intervention. It all starts out in Lightroom. Select all the images that will be used for
the blend. Then use Edit>Open As
Layers and a new document will open in Photoshop with all shots as layers.
If everything has been shot on a
tripod, things will be properly aligned by default but I often do these things
on the spur of the moment so they are hand held. Consequently, while my efforts to keep
pointing in the same direction are not bad, the first task is to select all
layers and Auto Align layers to tidy things up.
Next, go into the Layer tab and, under Smart Object, convert to a Smart
Object. This may take a little while.
Next step is to go back into Layers>Smart
Objects>Stack Mode. This brings up
the same options as you get through the Statistics function. Select Mean and send it on its way and you
end up with a shot that, depending on the number of shots taken and the clear
space in enough of them, results in a clear shot. Usually I find that I haven’t got enough
shots of the right type to get everything to disappear so some ghostly elements
may remain but they are certainly less distracting than the figures in the
original shots. I have no idea what the
other modes will achieve and the descriptions Adobe provides in their help
files are so obscure as to be virtually useless. Instead I shall have to
experiment with them to see what happens.
Thankfully, now I have this new method, I can undo the last step easily
to try each option which would not have been possible using the Statistics
dialog. Another win!
