Fixing Group Portaits with Helicon Montage

Helicon Montage is our new utility for EASY image montage that allows you to copy objects / parts of objects from one image to another.

One of the most common applications of Helicon Montage is to swap heads or faces in group portraits. If you've ever tried to photograph several people in one shot, you know all too well that someone almost always accidentally closes their eyes on just about every shot—and it's usually a different person each time! This is just one example of how individual people "spoil" group portraits.

The good news is that it's very easy to fix problems like these with Helicon Montage—even for newbies.

Helicon Montage is installed and licensed with Helicon Filter 5.

For a quick, easy start, watch our video tutorials or read the Quick Start tutorial.

Helicon Montage Workflow

The following is the general workflow with Helicon Montage:

1. Click on the source image to select the part of the object that you wish to copy.

2. Click on the target image where you want to place the object that you just copied.

3. Switch back to the source image and continue fine-tuning the object. At the same time, observe how the object looks in the target image. You can read more about how to fine-tune an object in the Quick Start tutorial.

4. Check the target image to see what else can be done to the cloned object to make it fit the target image better. You can do one or all of the following:

• Switch to "Move" mode and then move, scale, stretch, and/ or tilt the cloned object. The "Move" mode shortcut is: press and hold down the M key.

• Switch to "Adjust colors" mode to alter the brightness, color temperature, and/ or saturation of the cloned object. The "Adjust colors" mode shortcut is: press and hold down the C key.

You can switch to the "Move" and "Adjust colors" modes while you are in the process of making a selection, and then you can switch back to continue selecting the object.

You can clone several objects from one source. If you want to edit (i.e., move, scale, etc.) the next cloned object separately, however, you will need to start a new area before selecting the new object. To start a new area, click the "New area" button.

Source image	Target image
Result of using Helicon Montage on the above two photographs