With group shots, many people like to do a serious picture and then a silly picture. Sometimes people make funny faces, stick their tongues out, or jump in the air. Here, my friends decided to raise their hands up.
Pictures with lots of people in them look much better when printed large. Individual faces are hard to make out in a 4x6 inch print, but are easier to see when printed in a larger size. I wanted to include both pictures but make them large enough to see the faces. My solution was to fill most of the page with the serious picture and put the fun picture in the background.
This was very easy to accomplish in the GIMP. I simply put the fun shot over a black background and added a gradient mask to make it fade at the bottom. I wanted to emphasize the serious photo, so I put a white border around the main photo and lowered the opacity of the background photo to about 70%.
I put this layout on the wall so guests can see themselves and their friends. Maybe someday I'll actually catch everyone smiling and looking at the camera at the same time.
