Apple’s patent application reveals ‘Synthetic Group Selfies,’ automatically creates seamless collages from multiple shots

“Family portraits and photographs of a group are great ways for friends and acquaintances to capture a moment in time, as a reminder of what happened at an event,” Malcolm Owen reports for AppleInsider. “Even so, the process of creating a group shot can be a hassle for those involved for a variety of reasons.”

“Individuals may not like how they have been captured in a particular image, forcing there to be multiple shots taken. Others may not agree with their placement in the group itself, as they may prefer to be shown standing next to loved ones instead of a person they barely know,” Owen reports. “In the patent application published by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, Apple’s idea of ‘Generating Synthetic Group Selfies’ aims to solve these problems with group portraits by simply combining together multiple selfies.”

“According to the application, a collection of smartphones or tablets could be used to take self portraits of each user individually. Along with providing an optimal high-resolution image of the subject to work with, due to being shot from an arm’s reach away, it also means there is the opportunity for the subject to select their pose and to make multiple attempts to create the ideal image. An originating user sends a group selfie invitation to other contacts, who then take their own self portraits and has them sent to the first user’s device,” Owen reports. “Each individual’s image is split into two sections, consisting of the subject in the foreground and a background image. The section containing the subject is then combined along with others, arranged in a sequence that could feasibly be how people stand in a group photograph, with heads staggered in rows to fit the person behind in the gap between two other people.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: There always seems to be at least one person with their eyes closed or not looking in a group selfie. Many of us have Photoshopped group selfies to fix such issues (or even to add someone who was there that day, but not in that particular photo). This could be an interesting solution, however brute force and, yes, utterly synthetic, it may be.