Merging / blending images

I am using Photoshop CS2 on Windows XP Professional.
I want to create an image from four monotone images to place in a document which will be printed. The overall appearance of the finished image will be monotone (a blue/grey colour) with the four images blending nicely with a relatively smooth transition.
I have created four monotone eps images. Then I have created a new file the size of the image I want to finish up with. This is a cmyk image so I can use the cmyk colour I want to use as a background for the images. I want the images to blend into this background.
I have filled the final image with the blue/grey background colour. I then placed each of the monotone images into the final image on its own layer, using the Free Transform tool to get them where I want them.
My problem is making them blend nicely into the background colour so it looks like one image - a montage or collage. I have achieved a result which is almost acceptable but I have spent a lot of time without too much progress. I am not confident I am doing it the best way and fear I am wasting time heading in the wrong direction.
I would be grateful if you could let me know the direction I should take to achieve a nice looking final monotone image with each of the pictorial elements blending nicely - blending with the background and with each other where they overlap.
I look forward to hearing your suggestions.
Thanks
Frank

Apply a layer mask to each layer, then paint with a soft brush to hide/expose edges and transitions.
Here are a few tutorials on the subject to get you started...
http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut003.htm
http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=28265

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Blending images using ps elements 5.0

hi i cant find any tutorials to blend images. please if anyone know how to please help me. i saw few tutorials but they keep talking about layer mask and i dont see it. help me!
char.

Char,
Specifically what are you trying to do...
Superimpose one image onto another with both visible?
Have left side of one image merge into right side of other, or top of one merge into bottom of other?
Paste part of one image onto another?
etc, etc.
Depending on your purpose, you may or may not need a layer mask. Layer masks are in Photoshop but not in Elements (at least not in my older version, not sure about version 5). There are add-ons that incorporate layer masks into Elements. However there are ways to easily simulate layer mask functionality in Elements.
Here are examples:
This one pastes an object from one pic onto another.
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1pEKPvUxKQm2n7M7dll6CgeQwTxgt
This one uses the Gradient tool to merge pics.
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1tmwT951XXuVhpV9Vlsg9atJe6JLQ0
This one uses a simulated layer mask to create a blurred background.
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Upyom7uBfXijfKI4LGjA8KBKgCcRg0
If you would like details on these I would be happy to supply them.
Mark

Merging multiple images into one

Hi,
I am using Photoshop CS5 Extended on OSX.
I am still green when it comes to using Photoshop so all help to this question is much appreciated.
I am trying to merge several images together into the one. The images all have the same background but with a single object moving through the images in procession (the images are of a skiing piste with a snowboarder moving through). I have searched for a solution online but the best I found with so far is making each image a layer and then using a mask on each layer and making only the snowboarder visible from each picture. This works ok but it is quite difficult to get each layer to blend in nicely with the background. Also, I am dealing with 20+ layers, so it is a very labour-intensive solution. I am asking to see if there is another solution whereby I can merge all the images together? Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere but I seem unable to find another solution.
Again, thanks in advance for any help :-)

while manual masking is certainly the best option (assuming that all images are taken with a tripod, are somehow aligned, and all have the same exposure) (and 20 layers isn't that labor intensive), you could try to select all 20 layers, make them a smart object, and then go to layers: smart objects: stack mode and see if any of the mode give you something automatically what you are looking for.
another thing you could try (not sure if it'll work) is select the layers and go to auto blend: focus stack and see if that works.
alternatively, you could try cutting the subject out (lasso select, invert selection, delete) in each layer, and then go to auto blend, panorama.

Trying to merge 5 images

Whenever I try to merge 5 images of a chorale, the first four are merged together fine, but the 5th image gets put 'under' the top four...I never had this problem with CS3, so I don't know where to begin to resolve...? Using CS5 12.0.3 on Windows 7, 6G's of Ram..
Thanks so much for your time!!

It's "under" because Photoshop can't find any alignment of that image with the other 4 -- so Photoshop treats it as a separate panorama.
And that's probably because the people moved too much between the shots (you do seem to have enough overlap).
You could manually position it, then run the auto-blending command.

Merge split image segments

Dear Friends,
in an external PDF all images are splitted to smaller segments.
I heard this is quite common in PDF generation due Postscript.
I am placing this external PDF on an Indesign document page which is also exported again as a final PDF/SWF/JPEG.
But in the final PDF/SWF/JPEG there are white lines visible in the images, when they appear, allways between two image segments.
I heard this is due to rounding errors of position x-/y-coordinates of these image segments rendering them not perfectly onto their intended position.
I think about two general solutions:
Merge all image segments to a complete image.
Being able to position these segments with lock / automatically to make them perfectly edge to each other (but what would be with these rounding errors?).
This is a quite common problem to designers who want to further use the ressources or pages of an external PDF.
Often the senders of those external PDFs have not even got the original data (careless/lost/etc.).
It would be great if there is a reliable, solid solution to this problem.
Thank you for answers in advance!
With best regards
Inno

A naive (but possibly sufficient) implementation could just be to keep a table mapping (x,y) pairs to countries. To keep the table smaller, you could map 10x10 blocks of pixels to countries.
Ultimately this is about storing and then managing data.
One hack (in my opinion) is to check the color of the clicked pixel in the image of the map. But that is nasty for a variety of reasons (such as, it keeps you from being able to easily change the map image, and things like text in the map (like the names of countries) kind of screws that up. But it's an option.
You can also keep lists of pixels in sequence describing a polygon, and then use certain algorithms (which I don't recall right now) to determine whether a given point is inside or outside a given polygon.
Also you can do things like "binary space partitions", I think.
These last two things are computer graphics techniques, and are non-trivial to implement. I dimly recall them from college but recall no details. You can get a computer graphics textbook (which tend to be expensive) to get more info, or these days there's probably a wiki about it somewhere.
But I'd suggest keeping it modular. Add a layer of abstraction, writing an API around this functionality. Then write an implementation with a simple table of locations or blocks of locations, and if this proves to be insufficient later, swap it out with something more sophisticated.

Photomerge blend image no longer uses a "ragged" mask - blend boundaries are now obvious

Not sure if this is just me ... but I think the behaviour of the blend image process has changed since the latest update to Photoshop CC.
Previously, when images were blended together it would generate a mask with "ragged" edges. This was brilliant (almost better than Autopano Pro), since it made any blending artefacts almost impossible to discern, particularly when there were slight changes in the light between images. Now, the blending masks generated have straight edges between masked and visible areas - the blend sticks out like the proverbials. So far as I'm aware I'm using the identical workflow, and I've searched to no avail for an option setting somewhere that controls this behaviour. Can anyone help, please?

Hello!
I hope that I understand what you need.
(One could just put the image on a layer, and lower its opacity, but you seem to be looking for an effect in wich the tranparency is not the same for all pixels.)
Try this:
1) Turn your image image as a layer (double-click it if it is a background layer) [In order to add a mask]
2) Select all, Copy (CTRL+a, CTRL+C)
3) add a layer mask (click the rectangle with a circle in the bottom of the layers panel) [to be able to change transparency]
4) target the mask [so that you can past an image in it] ALT+click the mask, paste the image.
5) Invert the colors of the mask (CTRL+I) [in order for the white to be transparent and the black opaque].
You now have a layer whose transparency is based on the lightness of the pixels.
Hope that's what you are after!
Pierre

How to merge layered images?

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to merge layered images in Illustrator CS3?
I'm used to doing it with Photoshop. I thought the merge in Pathfinder would work but apparently not
Thanks for any advice
George

Choose both layers (click on one and hold down the CTL key to click on the second), then go to the layers drop down menu, and choose 'Merge Selected'.
OR
Choose both layers as above, go to layers drop down menu, and choose 'Collect in New Layer'.
Not sure this is what you're wanting to do .... if not, there may be another way.
DS

Issue merging multiple images in PS Elements Mac

I want to merge multiple images using PS Elements Editor/Organiser for Mac - when I click 'expert', then 'enhance' then 'photomerge' then 'Panorama' as suggested in 'Help' I get this error window:
I appears to be some sort of s/w issue but would value pointers, thanks folks, Sean.

many thanks Barbara and apologies folks I did not appreciate my pasted graphic would not show up! Here is the graphic I get in PS elements 11 for Mac when I click on Photomerge Panorama. Would value any suggestions although I suspect it is a s/w error as such rather than finger trouble - love to hear it is the latter! Sean

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A recent issue of PCMagazine, 6/27/2006, had an article entitled "Cool Photo Projects" which explained merging digital images with HDR. It mentioned that Photoshop CS2 will do that. Can it be done with Photoshop Elements 3? If not, is there a workaround that someone can suggest?
It does indeed look like a "cool project".
Thanks. Eva

I didn't know what HDR was, but read about it here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml
Seems to me that there's very little you could do in PSE to emulate this, as it's built-in functionality in CS2.
Having said that, taking a series of identical images, at different exposures, and simply using the best parts is quite possible.

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I've been trying out some pano mergeing and have hit a problem with some shots from my Leica M9 + 50mm Summicron f/2.0. Problem is that LR is failing to do proper tonal blending across merge point (see "line in the sand" in pic 1 below).
See this example:
1 : 4-shot pano out of LR with no further tweaks (join is clearly visible)
2 : same 4 shots out of Photomerge in PSCC (2014), opened as Layers in PS, then Edit> Auto-Align, the Edit> Auto-Blend. Again, no further tweaks. (No visible join)
I tried running the merge in ACR out of Bridge, and got same result as in 1 above.
Hope it's clear from the jpegs what the problem is here. I found switching on lens profile in LR made a slight difference, but still it lags way behind what Photomerge in PSCC creates
Maybe someone in the LR team can comment on this??
Regards
Jim

I got a couple of gaps in the snowfall yesterday and ran a couple of tests.
Set both cameras the same: ISO 160, f/5.6, 1/250sec
First up a 4-image stitch from the M9 + 50mm Summicron:
Not easy to see the issue here in the small jpeg the forum allows, so here's a 100% crop from Library Loupe view of the trees top rightish:
I've tried several times, and it seems that the ACR/LR pano merge is much more consistent that PS ever is: repeated iterations were absolutely identical in every respect! In this instance the f/stop values of the 4 shots as recorded in the exif info were (l to r) f/6.7, f/8, f/5.7, f/9.5 - remember, in all cases the true aperture value was f/5.6!
Next a pano comprising 4 shots taken with my Pana GX7, with a Leica M-mount Voigtlander 25mm (= equivalent to 50mm on 35mm/ FF sensor). Camera's lens detection switched off, which results in camera recording aperture setting of f/0.0 in the exif info
No problems with the blending here, or in any other pano with this camera/ lens combination
Here's another from the M9 - much more successful, and comprising images with recorded f-stop values of (l to r) f/5.7, f/5.7, f/8, f/4.8.
While it is just about acceptable, it is clear that there's a tonal shift going on in the area directly above the top of the tallest tree, which is at the right-hand extreme of shot 2: see this screenshot of the 4 component shots in Grid view:
Best I got was this one, and it comes from blending 4 files with a pretty slight range of recorded f-stop values: (l to r) f/5.7, f/5.7. f/6.7. f/5.7 (ISO 160, 1/350sec)
if the others were as good as this, I'd have no problem. Here's one from the GX7 taken just seconds after the last (ISO160, 1/400sec, all f/0.0)
I rest my case: the Leica M9's eccentric approach to recording f-stops seems able to throw the new ACR/LR Merge to Pano's calculations awry. At least that's how it seems in my humble opinion and total ignorance of what goes on under the hood in digital photo processing apps
Maybe someone from the ACR Team might read this and make some sense of it - for now I've got a backlog of other work to do LR, and for now I can always round-trip to PS and do pan-stitching the old way. As I've said above I'm old enough to remember when Automate>Photomerge produced some bizarre, artefact-strewn results. But it got fixed and I'm sure this will too...
Jim

Merge two images

I have two java.awt.Image objects that need to be shown one over the other (one contains transparency information). Right now, they are placed in seperate labels and placed one over the other. Obviously, I would much rather have a single Image object containing both images merged together.
I've looked through the Image class and could not find a simple "add" or "blend" function. Does anyone have any quick solutions, or do I have to write my own code?
Thanks in advance!
JN

Read up on java.awt.AlphaComposite
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/api/java/awt/AlphaComposite.html

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I'm trying to add a video onto an image on Premier. I want the image to be still and the video to play in the background. How do I make an image and video blend together in Premier?
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Video on track one. Image on track two. Use the motion property to locate and size the image.

Photoshop CC consistently hangs during photomerge when trying to blend images. Had to revert to CS6 which works great. Bug in cc?

It doesn't matter how many photos I'm trying to merge...get the same problem. System just quits when it gets to the "blending" stage. Photoshop CS6 works fine, so must be a bug in cc.
I have a new Windows 7 system with plenty of memory and a 3tb hard disk. Any thoughts or work-arounds would be helpful.

Photoshop CS6 works fine, so must be a bug in cc.
The things some people use the term "bug" for …
You have not even mentioned the exact version of Photoshop you use, so even if it should be a bug it is impossible to ascertain whether it was a bug that has already been fixed in an update.
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How to merge two images together

hi,
I sell mobile phone cases and want to produce my own images. I have taken images of the case and have taken the background off. I have found an image on the internet of the phone and want the phone to be merged into the case.
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In Editor, go to the expert tab.
Open picture B, the one you wish to select something from to add to another picture.
Use one of the selection tools, e.g. selection brush, lasso tool, to select the object. You will see an outline ("marching ants") once the selection is complete
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Need help urgently in blending images

Hi below are the codes for blending two images together in a mosaic...could anybody tell me how can i actually change the alpha to the same degree?? Thanks :)
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.font.*;
import java.awt.geom.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.Random;
import com.sun.image.codec.jpeg.*;
public class ShowOff extends Component
public static void main(String[] args)
try
*The image is loaded either from this default filename or first
*command-line arguement specifies what string will be displayed.
*The third specifies at what point in the string the background
*color will change.
String filename = "test.jpg";
String message = "Java2D";
int split = 4;
if(args.length>0) filename = args[0];
if(args.length>1) message = args[1];
if(args.length>2) split = Integer.parseInt(args[2]);
ApplicationFrame f = new ApplicationFrame("--Image Mosaic--");
f.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
ShowOff showOff = new ShowOff(filename, message, split);
f.add(showOff, BorderLayout.CENTER);
f.setSize(f.getPreferredSize());
f.center();
f.setResizable(true);
f.setVisible(true);
catch (Exception e)
System.out.println(e);
System.exit(0);
private BufferedImage mImage;
private Font mFont;
private String mMessage;
private int mSplit;
private TextLayout mLayout;
public ShowOff(String filename, String message, int split)throws IOException, ImageFormatException{
//get specified image
InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream(filename);
JPEGImageDecoder decoder = JPEGCodec.createJPEGDecoder(in);
mImage = decoder.decodeAsBufferedImage();
in.close();
//save the message and split
mMessage = message;
mSplit = split;
//set our size to match the image's size
setSize((int)mImage.getWidth(), (int)mImage.getHeight());
public void paint(Graphics g)
Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;
//Turn on antialiasing
g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
//AffineTransform aTranw1 = new AffineTransform();
// aTranw1.translate(1.0f, 1.0f);
// g2.transform(aTranw1);
drawTileImage(g2);
drawImageMosaic(g2);
protected void drawTileImage(Graphics2D g2)
Graphics2D g2w = (Graphics2D) g2;
//The RenderingHints class contains rendering hints that can be used
//by the Graphics2D class
RenderingHints rhw = g2w.getRenderingHints();
rhw.put (RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
g2w.setRenderingHints(rhw);
String filenamew = "C:/mosaic/redflower6.gif";
Image imgw = getToolkit().getImage(filenamew);
AffineTransform aTranw = new AffineTransform();
aTranw.translate(1.0f, 1.0f);
g2w.transform(aTranw);
g2w.drawImage(imgw, new AffineTransform(), this);
protected void drawImageMosaic(Graphics2D g2)
//break image up into tiles. Draw each tile with its own transparency,
//allowing background to show through to varying degrees.
int side = 50;
int width = mImage.getWidth();
int height = mImage.getHeight();
for(int y = 0; y < height; y+= side)
for(int x = 0; x < width; x+= side)
//calculate an appropriate transparency value.
float xBias = (float)x / (float)width;
float yBias = (float)y / (float)height;
float alpha = 1.0f - Math.abs(xBias - yBias);
g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER, alpha));
//draw subimage
int w = Math.min(side, width - x);
int h = Math.min(side, height - y);
BufferedImage tile = mImage.getSubimage(x,y,w,h);
g2.drawImage(tile,x,y,null);
//reset the composite
g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER, 0.5f));
}

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
public class BlendingTest
    public BlendingTest()
        BlendingPanel blendingPanel = new BlendingPanel();
        BlendingControl control = new BlendingControl(blendingPanel);
        Frame f = new Frame();
        f.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter()
            public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e)
                System.exit(0);
        f.add(blendingPanel);
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        f.setSize(400,400);
        f.setLocation(200,200);
        f.setVisible(true);
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        new BlendingTest();
class BlendingPanel extends Panel
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    private float alpha;
    public BlendingPanel()
        alpha = 0.0f;
        loadImages();
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        Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;
        int w = getWidth();
        int h = getHeight();
        int x, y, imageWidth, imageHeight;
        float alphaVal;
        AlphaComposite ac;
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            imageHeight = images[j].getHeight();
            x = (w - imageWidth)/2;
            y = (h - imageHeight)/2;
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                alphaVal = 1.0f - alpha;
            ac = AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER, alphaVal);
            g2.setComposite(ac);
            g2.drawImage(images[j], x, y, this);
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        paint(g);
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        alpha = value;
        repaint();
    private void loadImages()
        String[] fileNames = { "greathornedowl.jpg", "mtngoat.jpg" };
        images = new BufferedImage[fileNames.length];
        for(int j = 0; j < images.length; j++)
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                URL url = getClass().getResource("images/" + fileNames[j]);
                images[j] = ImageIO.read(url);
            catch(MalformedURLException mue)
                System.err.println("url: " + mue.getMessage());
            catch(IOException ioe)
                System.err.println("read: " + ioe.getMessage());
class BlendingControl implements AdjustmentListener
    BlendingPanel blendingPanel;
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    int visibleAmount;
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        blendingPanel = bp;
        maximum = 100;
        visibleAmount = 10;
        scrollbar = new Scrollbar(Scrollbar.HORIZONTAL, 0, visibleAmount, 0, maximum);
        scrollbar.addAdjustmentListener(this);
    public void adjustmentValueChanged(AdjustmentEvent e)
        // see scrollbar api to understand divisor expression
        float value = e.getValue()/(float)(maximum - visibleAmount);
        blendingPanel.setAlpha(value);
    public Panel getUIPanel()
        Panel panel = new Panel(new BorderLayout());
        panel.add(scrollbar);
        return panel;
}

Merging / blending images

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