Layering Photos

[Kabeeo]

Hi. I don't even know if this is an "Advanced" question but I do know that it is WAY above me. I have 5 photos of a pitcher in motion during his wind up. I would like to layer them on top of each other with the beginning of the windup being somewhat faded and build up to the last shot where the pitch finished. Is there an easy way to layer photos on top of each other like that? Thanks everybody.

[Aussie Nan]

Hi Kevin,

this is probably how I would go about it, but someone else may be able to show a different way.

Open all the images in elements.
Drag them one at a time into the background (you may need to turn your background into a regular layer by double clicking on it)
Your layers palette will now show them as individual layers which you can then edit to your liking. ie erasing parts of an image, blurring, fading, moving into a different order, resizing etc
Turn the eyeball off on layers you are not working on to make it easier to see what effect your editing is having on the image.
Once satisfied merge the images to create the final image.

Hope you get my explanation, maybe someone else can explain it better.
Good luck.

Toni

[frank abramonte]

Toni's instruction sound good.
My only suggestion is to correct the images so that they all match fairly well in color, size and resolution. This should be done before attempting to put them together, it will make the rest of the job easy.

[Kabeeo]

Thanks. I will give that a try.

[Lesa]

Howdy Kevin,

I did a tutorial like that awhile back. Even though it was for a greeting card, it covers combining photos into one document and using a layer mask to hide certain portions of each one:

Creative Combinations, Part 1 (http://graphicreporter.com/tutorials/elements_greetingcard.html)

[Kabeeo]

Thanks for your idea Lesa. I will give it a go.