Compositing images and viability for friends band

[4409723]

A couple of my friends are fledgling musicians and have just finished an album.

They need a cover and we were sitting around thinking of what to do. I had an idea to get them and all their instruments to a forest, find a clearing. Set up the band to look as if they are playing, put the camera on a tripod and take a picture. Then leave the camera on the tripod and have the band form an audience and take maybe 10-15 pictures of them 'watching' where the band would be.

In photoshop would there be an easier way to composite the images into one without manually cutting out each member standing and placing them in the image.

(I'm assuming I'd need the light and exposure to be constant for this to work also).

Cheers,

Wes

 

[munchmime]

i'm not the greatest....

not nearly a pro, but when i make a picture like your discribing, i put my first layer down, lock it so i cant erase it, then i make a copy of my second image. i put the copy of that into photoshop in a new layer, and then erase the parts i dont need. going slowly, mind you, in the critical parts.... then i flatten the finished image and export it. there was a thread here where people posted a bunch of shots where they had themselves in the same picture doing different things. I don't have time to look it up right now, but i'm sure you can find it... or someone else knows where it is.

-Munch

 

[4409723]

Thanks a lot for the reply, that's the approach I was considering but I thought photoshop might have some layering options to save the work of isolating each person from the background.

I'll have a look for that thread tonight.

Cheers!