How to create a photo sequence in Photoshop

posted in: Photography | 1

I posted an old picture in Facebook today – a sequence of shots of a hunting osprey. People asked how I did it, so here it is. I haven’t used the hunting osprey – it’s not one of my best efforts. So we’ll deconstruct this one of a pelican landing on a beach.

Pelican landing copy

The camera was in sports mode so it took a series of photos in quick succession. Bear in mind this is a time sequence. Some of those actions actually took place physically much closer together.

Background
I picked one of the pictures for the background to the shot. I needed lots of beach.
Layer1
Layer1 I cropped the pelican, its shadow and part of the background
Layer2
Layer 2 Once again, I cropped the pelican and its shadow. Notice this is the same bird as the one in the background. The bird in the background gets covered.
Layer3
Layer 3 The pelican was cut using Photoshop’s magic extractor. I kept the shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the layers were originally rectangles. After I’d placed them, in some cases I had to remove some of the beach to reveal parts of the bird in the layer underneath.  After that I used the merge and repair tools to disguise the edges of the layers. That’s why the picture in layer one has such jagged edges. Layer one is covering the bird in the background, which is why I had so much beach in it.

So there you go. I have fun doing these.