The More the Merrier

Pictures of large groups can be difficult, particularly when children are involved (or uncooperative adults). Large groups can also be a lot of fun to photograph. Being part of a large family or group of friends is just fun. Here are a few pointers to get great large group photos, including some secrets of merging parts of photos in Photoshop.

During the Shoot

1. Do keep things laid back and fun, the more uptight you are, the less likely you are to get smiles
2. Do let children be children. It's completely acceptable for young children to be looking away, lost in thought, laughing, or being silly in photographs. They're just children after all, it looks quiet natural for them to be behaving that way. 
3. Don't let adults look like children. It's not ok if you can't get a single picture of the adults looking at the camera, smiling. (Alright, it may turn out ok, but honestly adults.....you have DECADES of practice at this, it shouldn't be that difficult)
4. Do take a lot of pictures, on a tripod, in the exact same pose. The more people you work with the more likely you'll have to do some post-processing work swapping out faces. I've found that it helps relieve stress when you are less concerned with getting "the perfect shot" and more concerned with capturing workable shots and keeping things low-key. 
5. Don't forget to check the live view! Look at the pictures as you take them. Thanks to digital photography, we don't have to get it perfect the first time, but if you don't check how pictures are turning out, there isn't much that post-processing can do for you. If someone's face is hidden behind something, it's hidden. You'll need to fix that during the shoot.

Post-Processing

1. Do start by getting all the participants looking their best. If you need to open up someone's eyes or replace someone's face all together, merge photos first before you do any other adjusting. Keep in mind lighting differences between shots as you are merging photos and compensate as necessary. 
2. Don't forget to zoom in. Photo merging can be tricky. Your best bet to ensure it looks perfect is to zoom in (I like to set my zoom to be 2 times the size of the largest expected print). 
3. Do save Photoshop documents as you go. Rename documents at important breaking points. For example, I always save a copy of my work after I have all my photo-merge layers in Photoshop looking the way I want. This way I can actually merge or flatten all of the photo-merge layers for additional post-processing work. It gets less confusing this way. 
4. Do try different settings for brightness, contrast, saturation, ambient light, etc. I like to create three different edited images on important large family photos as a starting point, then I usually end up finalizing a fourth image that builds off my favorite things about the other edits. 
5. Don't go overboard. Their are stylistic ways to over-expose, over-saturate, under-saturate, etc. photos. When working with big groups, I don't find these artsy styles really work well. There is just too much going on already for me.