How can I remove people from a busy scene by combining multiple tripod shots?
Asked 6/18/2016
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I want to photograph a crowded location and end up with a final image that looks empty. My understanding is that you can put the camera on a tripod, take many photos of the same scene, then combine only the areas where no people appear.
What is this technique called? Is there free/libre software that can help automate it, and how would the workflow generally work?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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The most common technique for this is stacking and using masks and layers. I've done this with panoramas in PTGui, using their masking feature to erase ghosts and clones, but I don't think there's any free way of automating this task, because you need to identify the people you want to erase, and you also need to shoot enough "clean plate" to cover all the areas with people. Depending on your shooting situation and how much people are moving, this could be impossible.
The only automatic way I know of doing this would require a current Photoshop license. But File → Scripts → Statistics, with the Stack Mode set to Median will basically do what you're talking about, so long as the people are all moving from image to image in the set. (See this phlearn.com Youtube video).
A simpler technique is to use a very long exposure with an ND filter. So long as most people are moving in your shot, they won't register on the image. Just beware of people who are standing still. I had a beach shot I took with a B+W 110 (10-stop ND filter). 40s exposure managed to erase the multitude of surfers on the waves, but not the one person standing by the dock who didn't move the whole time.
Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user27440
10y ago
0
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This is usually done with image stacking plus masks/layers, sometimes called creating a “clean plate” from multiple exposures.
Typical workflow:
- Put the camera on a tripod and keep the framing fixed.
- Take many shots of the same scene over time.
- Combine the images in layers and mask in the parts of each frame where the background is clear.
Automation is limited. To remove people automatically, the software has to identify what changes between frames. A known automated method is median stacking: if people move around from shot to shot, a median stack can suppress them and keep the static background.
Caveats:
- It only works well if the people move enough between frames.
- You still need enough “clean” coverage of every part of the scene.
- In very crowded situations, some areas may never be unobstructed, so full removal may be impossible.
From the answers provided, PTGui can help manually with masking/ghost removal, but it is not presented as a free/libre automatic solution. The fully automatic example mentioned was Photoshop’s Statistics script using Median stack mode.
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