Multiplicity

Multiplicity is a term in photography world which means to display same object in various point of a frame. It is also known as clone. In sports photography same process is being maintained with another name “Sequence Photography.” In sports, this technique is very much popular to show the sequence of a gymnast’s performance steps or a skate player’s movement from starting to end in a single frame.

Multiplicity is a technique to merge multiple images in a single frame. This technique is only possible at the time of the postproduction.

I use Photoshop CS6 to complete the technique. It is relatively easy to do the edit during postproduction.

Step by step process:

• Use a tripod and set a location. Lock the camera in tripod and never pan the camera.
• Use wide angle lens e.g. 18mm, 24mm etc.
• Calculate the places where your subject will be placed. From the viewfinder locate the places where the subject will stand with various moods or moves. In sports, place the camera in such a place where the optimum situations will be occurred. For example: a man jumps from one cliff to another.
• Switch off VR or IS mode of lens.
• Use narrow aperture like f/8, f/11 subject to light condition for reasonable sharp images.
• Try to use manual focusing system otherwise ‘Aperture Priority’ or ‘Shutter Priority’ mode can be taken care of if the photo artist is agreed to focus the subject automatically (AF).
• Try to calculate how many subjects are flexible enough in a single frame.
• If the subject is in natural light, then try to take images as early as possible because the light is changing each and every second. Photographers not to worry for light changing if the images are taken in indoor with artificial light or using flash.
• Choose odd or even images to avoid the overlapping of subjects.

Post Production

1. Dump all the picture files in a computer drive.
2. Open Photoshop. Click on the File menu and choose Scripts and select Load files into stack.
3. A box will pop up. Select the files and press OK button. If all the pictures are taken using tripod, photo artists can avoid the check box of ‘attempt to automatically align source images.’
4. All image files are loaded in Photoshop. Check all the files are loaded in the layer toolbar or not. Add a Layer Mask of each and every image file by selecting every file layer.
5. Now select the Mask Layer of the first image. The mask layer is white in colour. So, choose colour as black from the toolbar. Photo artist can find a toggle button to interchange the black and white colour of the two small boxes in the left-hand side toolbar.
6. Choose a brush tool and change the size of brush as subject demands.
7. Now rub the subject carefully. After complete removal, press control and i key (ctrl + i) from the key board.
8. Choose the next mask layer and repeat the steps 5, 6 and 7.
9. Choose the last image’s mask layer but put the image file as it is without rubbing and pressing ctrl + i
10. Now select Layer menu and click on Flattern Image.
11. Save the file.

Hope the tutorial will be useful for your multiplicity or sequence photography’s post production technique.

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