In this case (Thanksgiving, 2002) my father took a picture of the family (1), then my brother-in-law, Scott, stood in almost the same place and took one with my father in it (2). When my dad added the images to our Yahoo family group site, I did something I hadn't done much before: Add a person from one picture into another.

Step #1 - Choice

Given the following two pictures, from which would you choose to cut either Scott (first person on right, picture #1) or my father (middle of picture #2), to paste into the other picture and why?

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NOTE: It appears from these pictures that there's another person attending, based on the empty chair and place-setting in the front (lower part) of the picture. To be honest, I don't remember, now, who else was to attend. I just know they weren't there when the pictures were taken. (I know my brother and his family weren't there (they went to her parents'). It was probably for my uncle who lives in West Lafayette, and may not have shown up until after we ate.)

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Don't go on until you've chosen ... I'll wait ...

Ok... I chose to cut my father from Picture #2 and add him to Picture #1. Why? More of Scott appears in the first picture, complicating what needed to be cut. Dad's image is smaller and there are a few "landmarks" I can use for sizing and positioning, though I hope most of them won't be in the final. (It just seemed the RIGHT way to do it.

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Step #2 - Editing (Cutout)

I cut Dad out using edges of panels, and other "landmarks" in the picture, making lines as straight as I could with the polygon cutout tool, trying to keep as much out of the cut image as possible, except for him. I tried a couple of approaches, and ended up using the one shown on below. Note that it includes fingers on the left, the top of a green "mega-mug", the tops of some candle flames, and the visible part of a Mountain Dew bottle. (The white, surrounding the cutout was made transparent when it was pasted.)

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Step #3 - Paste & Size

For this step, I opened Picture #1 in MSIC, and inserted Dad's picture, positioning it over the empty chair. I made sure the white was transparent, and played with the size using the wall and door panel edges, the green cup, the flames and the Mountain Dew bottle as guidelines, shifting the insert as I went, until almost everything lined up. (You can see the edges of the cutout in the picture below.)

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Step #4 - Cleanup

Then I began "erasing" the visible edges of the inserted image by transferring a few pixels from beside them to directly over them. While tedious, this was not as hard as I had feared. Of course there were a few "miscues", but I could always undo it using the button, or go back to the previous step.

And, I ended up with The Sanders Family Thanksgiving, 2002 picture with everyone that was there as we began to eat.

While it may not be perfect for extreme close-up (400% and up) of all of the added area, for the web, this size and smaller, and even a little larger print, this is something the family didn't expect to see!

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By the way: The original pictures were taken using the same camera within seconds of each other (no real lighting change), and were 2400 x 1800, and around 370K each. I would ALWAYS recommend making edits on the highest resolution possible, then shrinking the whole thing when done.

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