Mocking bird flight diplay, hand-merged

[Dan Brown]

I shot several of these flight display sequences today and try as I might, I couldn't make photomerge produce a stitch. So, I layered them up, erased down to each bird, cropped, flattened and replaced the sky bg (that was all messy) with a nice blue color that sort of matches the original sky. Whew! He jumped up on the left and then fluttered backward and then down on the right. The birds are probably closer together than they occured but I wanted to produce a smaller canvas. Hope this isn't too unnatural looking? See a bigger image here - http://naturestoc.smugmug.com/Photog...4543271_VQJSKp
C&C welcome.

[Dennis Bishop]

This is a fun thing to do. Fortunately, you had a bird that was doing acrobatics rather than just flying away or landing like the ones I usually see. I wasn't too surprised when you said photomerge didn't do anything for you. Try this -- stack your shots as layers, then -- assuming they're well-aligned, already, because you were shooting from a tripod -- run edit/autoblend. It should work. I copied your image, made eight duplicate layers, painted over all but one bird on each, and did the autoblend. It returned what you posted.

[Dan Brown]

This is a fun thing to do. Fortunately, you had a bird that was doing acrobatics rather than just flying away or landing like the ones I usually see. I wasn't too surprised when you said photomerge didn't do anything for you. Try this -- stack your shots as layers, then -- assuming they're well-aligned, already, because you were shooting from a tripod -- run edit/autoblend. It should work. I copied your image, made eight duplicate layers, painted over all but one bird on each, and did the autoblend. It returned what you posted.

Thanks, Dennis! I will try that!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Dan, this is cool stuff! He looks like he's on a trampoline

[denise ippolito]

Dan, I took a look at your website and your images were very inspiring. Many times I capture images that I think should be merged-after seeing your site I think I'll give it a try. Nice sequence and merging!

[Hazel Grant]

Thanks for the inspiration, Denise and thank you Dan for the suggested process!
Looks like a modern dance! Well done.

[Maureen Allen]

What fun! I love the merge. I think I might have to give this a try as well

[Anita Bower]

Amazing! Your photograph allows me to "see" what this Mockingbird did, which I would never have seen otherwise. Clever and detailed work. Well done. I, too, visited your website to see more of these creative images.