Multiplicity photography is the photographic technique of merging multiple images into one with the help of post processing softwares like Adobe Photoshop. This trick is also known as Sequence Photography.
 |
| Multiplicity Photography or Sequence Photography |
How to do Multiplicity Photography?
In order to combine different exposures into one, you need to carefully plan and take the individual pictures.
Step by Step Tutorial – How to Take the Shots
- Mount your Camera on a Solid Tripod
- Focus on your scene and shift to manual focus: - if your camera re focus every time you will have slightly misaligned pictures, it’s possible to make multiplicity photograph with those but it requires a lot more effort in Photoshop.
- Put your camera in Manual mode and dial in the exposure manually:- this is critical so as to get consistent exposures throughout.
- Use a Narrow Aperture: - you will need your subject to be reasonably sharp in every instance so it is recommended to use a narrow aperture, f/11 or greater should work just fine.
- Shoot through the sequence quickly:- lighting conditions could change significantly when you are shooting outdoors and might cause problems, so it is always better to pre-plan your poses and go through the sequence in as little time as possible.
Below are some of the shots used to create the final picture, i have not included all the pictures, and it is always a good idea to shoot a couple of more instances of your subject than you actually need, so you will have options to choose from while post processing. You only need to use the one's you wish.
 |
| Multiplicity Photography or Sequence Photography |
 |
| Multiplicity Photography or Sequence Photography |
 |
| Multiplicity Photography or Sequence Photography |
 |
| Multiplicity Photography or Sequence Photography |
Photoshop Tutorial
- Import all your files into Photoshop:- Click File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack. If you are using an older version of Photoshop which does not have the load files into stack option, you need to manually copy paste the pictures as layers into the same document.
 |
| This is how your layer palette looks like when you have all your shots stacked as layers in a single document. |
- Using Layer Masks:- once you have all your shots in different layers, click on the top layer to activate it. Click New Layer Mask icon (at the bottom of the layers window).
- Press B, then D to select the brush tool with black as the foreground colour.
- Now paint over the person in that layer, the figure will be erased, now press Ctrl + I (to invert the mask), now you will be able to see two instances of the person.
- Now you need to repeat what we did to the top layer to all the layers and you have your very own multiplicity photo. You need not apply mask to the bottom layer.
 |
| This is how the layers palette looks like once you have applied layer masks to all but the bottom layer. |
Here's another one.... Have Fun.
 |
| Multiplicity Photography or Sequence Photography |
