Remember how yesterday I went on and on and ON about how so many photographers are faking merging the newborn head-in-the-hands shot? And remember how I said we’ve only done one of those (it was Mac btw)? And how all other times have been real?

And TRUST ME. I wasn’t knocking other photographers. Well, I guess I WAS. But only the ones that don’t do it right. And not in a mean way. Just in a getitrightordon’tdoitatall kind of way. And I was using our non-merged shot from Addie’s session as an example of just balancing that baby in a safe way instead of merging the shot while I blabbered on and on.

However.

Two things happened yesterday.

1. Kim is SO freaking awesome at editing she rocked my socks off. And laughed her ass off at my expense.

2. I made a complete fool out of myself. And am now telling the tale.

Remember this shot I blogged yesterday?

Besides the post-processing do you notice anything different about this shot that I didn’t post?

Not much right?

Well the day of Addie’s session we didn’t think she would be able to hold this pose but she looked so dang cute we resorted to setting it up for a merge. I snapped away while Kim posed and then BAM she held it! So Kim moved her hands and I snapped away knowing we’d nailed it.

Knowing we’d gotten the shot, when I saw the edited version of Kim’s ready for the blog I ASSUMED it was not a merged shot. Because DUDE, merging those shots is HARD and takes way more time than just editing a regular image!

But do you know what happens when you assume? YOU MAKE AN ASS OUT OF YOURSELF! HA!

The black/white shot we blogged IS TOTALLY MERGED!

But can you tell? Because I sure as hell can’t!

Which leads me to start talking about what a ROCK STAR my partner is! Seriously, she’s amazing at nailing an edit in LR and PS. AHHHMAZING. She texted me this morning laughing hysterically that even I couldn’t tell the difference!

And SO. To help anyone that might not totally understand HOW to merge these shots AND to help salvage a little of myself I’d like to introduce Kim. My wonderfully brilliant partner who tricked me and laughed all day about it! Kim is going to teach the masses her wizardry! Enjoy!

————————————————————————————————————————————-

I took great delight in not necessarily laughing at Jodie, but knowing even SHE, who was there and knew we took shots with the intent to do a composite, couldn’t spot it as a composite.  And so I figured now was as good a time as any to share a little “secret” in newborn posing for those interested!  This is an example of one of the reasons we MERGED as Fresh Art, knowing some shots are just plain difficult without 2 people, and keeping baby’s safety as a #1 priority!

This shot is actually one of the more easy composite/merged shots!  You still need a *really* sleepy baby, which Addie certainly was!  She easily got into position, but not able hold it on her own… so I just held it for her, and moved my hands, knowing with 2 shots and her not moving and Jodie not moving, we could have one complete shot.

So, after my initial processing in Lightroom, which I just synced the two together so they matched perfectly, I brought them into Photoshop looking like this:

And then just put one on top of the other, lined them up, applied a layer mask and masked away the places where I’m holding her up and it became this:

And then, as I was holding her, I could feel she was getting more stable and I was able to completely pull my hands out of the shot and Jodie was able to snap away a few more frames in the horizontal orientation which was a total bonus!

So no, Jodie, you aren’t an idiot… it’s just a testament to our awesome team work!  🙂