Handleabra,

This image was produced in a similar way to Ghost writer only this time I started with 8 photographs. Each photograph was put on a separate layer with the wall as the background. I then used the eraser tool with a very soft edge brush to rub out the unwanted parts of each layer, to make sure the joins did not show I reduced the opacity to around 20%.

The joins between the candles and fingers were improved by adjusting the hue / saturation of both layers to balance colour and tone in each layer.

Preparation is the key to manipulation, I deliberately took all of the photographs including the background in the same room using the same lighting. This ensured that the colour balance of all photographs were very similar and reduced the amount of manipulation required to merge them together.

The resulting images will never be entered in competitions or hang on my wall in the house, but the skills I have improved have been used in much more subtle ways in both landscapes and natural history images I have since taken.