How to quickly make a perfect group shot from a couple of images?

It happens alot of times that while taking a group shot, there is atleast one person who is looking somewhere else. So we ask to pose for another shot. However now someone else from the group is not in perfect smile or moving his hands here or there.

Getting a perfect group shot is too simple using PSE.

1. Open the two group shots which are not so perfect and go to File>New> Photomerge Group Shot or Guided Edit > Photomerge> Group Shot

For example :

The above screen appears. Select the base image where most of the people appear perfect and drag it to the empty space on the right where as the source image at left.

If you see the above pictures you would notice that in right image(our base image) , the person on the left has his arm raised. While in the left image, the person at the back has his arms raised.

So we want to have one picture out of these two were none of the guys have their arms raised.

2. Select the pencil tool from right panel and create a selection like the one show below (V-Shaped), where I selected the person on left who appears fine.

As soon as you leave the mouse drag, you would see the results as shown :





But if you see closely, there is a problem in this result which is highlighted as shown below :

Problem highlighted in pink box

So the person highlighted in pink box is having another arm in the result image on right.

It is just one more step. Just select the eraser tool from right panel and rub over the arm area in the source i.e. left image and the extra arm disappears.

And here is my resultant image :)

Final image after applying Photomerge group shot

Photomerge Style Match in PSE 9?

It might have had happened to you when you have gone to shoot a sunset scene but unfortunately you got haze or clouds instead.

There is a cool feature in PSE 9 called Photomerge Style Match. Using this feature, you can match the style of any photo and transfer that style to your picture. For example if I had shot a sunset one day at some place X and I wished if I could have a similar shot on place Y. But if for some reasons I could not get, PSE 9 will help me. I can give the same sunset effect to my second image in a simple steps using this feature.

So here was my picture that I took on a foggy day. The image looks very normal and unattractive. 

1. After opening the image in Editor, select New> Photomerge Style Match.

2. A new bin appears adjacent to project bin at the bottom called Style/bin. Style bin consists of few sample images as shown that can be used as source images to transfer their style to the your photo. You may add your own style images by clicking on the green + button in the style bin.

3. As you double click or drag any of the photos from the style bin to the blank placeholder above the project bin, the style will get applied to the image as shown with some default settings. I selected the default Sunset source image already existing in the style bin.

4. Now you can check the checkbox Transfer Tones to see how the image looks after the tones are transfered. You can play around with Style intensity, Style Clarity, Enhance Details, Soften stroke edges sliders to see the effect on your image.

The effects can come be really compelling if you try Style painter and Style Eraser tool buttons with different Opacity values( Opacity slider present on top tool bar) over different parts of image. So you may choose to erase style at some parts of image with 50% intensity while at other parts you may want to keep 100% of the effect.

Here is my final image after trying Style painter and Style Eraser with different Opacities at different parts of image :