space shuttle discovery

[nokk]

@ntz here's the image i was talking about. this is the final image made from about 150 shots, all handheld from a suspended catwalk that bounced whenever someone walked behind me. the floor was crowded with people, i'll post a few of those shots so you can see how many people were around. everyone was removed except for the one guy who's head is sticking out just over the second A in hangar. he's a museum employee and didn't move the entire time. i decided to keep him in.

if you can use a tripod then do it. if you can't then you can try to handhold it.

every photo in the series has to be taken from the same spot. the few inches the camera moves as you bring it up to your eye (or as the catwalk bounces) is fine but the more movement that happens the more issues you may have in alignment. take more photos than you think you need.

every photo has to have the same exposure and same focus. i focus once and and then switch to manual focus and leave it. plant your feet and don't move them until you've shot everything you need to.

this might be wrong cause i don't have photoshop in front of me, but i'll edit it on monday for details and corrections. all of the images in the series were edited in lightroom with the exact same settings and the jpgs were saved in a folder by themselves. in photoshop i didn't open any images. i went to file>scripts>load files into stack. i chose the folder with all of the images in it, checked the box to have photoshop try to align them and then i watched a movie while the images stacked and aligned.

a few hours later i had a ton of layers in a single file. i saved it then as a .psd cause i wasn't sure when ps would crash. most of the layers were pretty well aligned, the ones that weren't were nudged into place using the pointer tool, arrow keys and the layer's opacity set to 50%.

all layers were given a mask filled with black except for the bottom layer. on the second layer i brushed white on the mask of the second layer over the people, and in this case their reflections on the floor. they either disappeared or were replaced by parts of people. rinse and repeat for the third layer for the people or people parts that were still left and so on for the rest of the 150 layers. i ended up doing this for well over 100 layers to make this image.

here's a link on how to get photoshop to do this manually:
How to quickly remove unwanted moving objects from your photos - DIY Photography

if you don't want to click the link google "photoshop remove moving objects from layers" and you'll find what you need.

i've had mixed results with letting photoshop do it when there's too many people. sometimes it assumes the people should be there because they're in the same spot in more layers than not. especially if they're standing around in the same spot for a long time

 

[Original katomi]

I am impressed
I do large to me. 2meters long, panoramic images that have upto 30 original shots that have to be merged in layers
And even with 32gig of ram I have do it all manually as the ripples and wind effect on water seems to confuse my pse 9
As for tripods a trick I have used is a mono pod that I have zip tie/ cable tied to a bollard or railing
It gives me the stability of a tripod with out the agro of being in the way with a tripod

 

[nokk]

I am impressed
I do large to me. 2meters long, panoramic images that have upto 30 original shots that have to be merged in layers
And even with 32gig of ram I have do it all manually as the ripples and wind effect on water seems to confuse my pse 9
As for tripods a trick I have used is a mono pod that I have zip tie/ cable tied to a bollard or railing
It gives me the stability of a tripod with out the agro of being in the way with a tripod

i've done stacked shots to remove people with my 50r (50 mp images), nothing on this scale. these were on a fuji, probably the x-t2. pretty sure 150 50r images would kill photoshop, no matter what version.

most of my stacks to remove people have been 10-20 images. but the museum was packed.

unfortunately, the udvar hazy museum is part of the smithsonians, no tripods or monopods allowed. i haven't found many places that ban tripods but allow monopods in the states so i've never bought one. but stabilizing the monopod against existing structures is a good trick.

 

[K9Kirk]

Even with Mr. Silhouette it's still a nice shot. He wouldn't have jumped out at me even if I hadn't read about him first, he's so minimal. Nice work.

 

[Space Face]

I have no desire to go in to Space but I am fascinated by it. Fine shot there N.