Chatique with Laura Lou

BACKGROUND:
With digital cameras don't you take a LOT more photos than you did with film? I have a month-old Canon Digital Rebel and have taken over 1500 photos already. All pictures that weren't "just right" have been deleted, and I kept only the best one of each bird I photograph. However, when it comes to my granddaughters, I just can't eliminate a lot that look about the same. The continuous shooting feature of portrait and sports modes capture all those quick-as-a-wink expressions and I end up with 150 pictures, like I did from a one-hour shoot at the beach with my granddaughter this month.

One technique is to stack photos as I did in these two layouts:

And this one:


You can use the “drop shadow” style in Photoshop and change the size to show that the top stacked photos have a deeper shadow. I used 3 pixels for those on the bottom and added 2 pixels for each layer above that.

You can make your own shadows by duplicating the photo. Turn the layer below black (or some other color…shadows do not always have to be black). Lower the opacity (I use 40%) and add a Gaussian Blur filter. You can also warp the shadow slightly.