In this tutorial, we will work with two photographs and combine them into one image. This image will be used for a winter themed video opener that we will make in Apple Motion.

As you can see, we begin with two photographs, each containing a squirrel in the snow. We need an image of both squirrels.

Our first step is to combine the two squirrels in to one image in Photoshop^R. At this point, one squirrel is larger than the other. Also, let's put the smaller squirrel on the right.

1. Flip the smaller squirrel and drag that image to the right of the larger image.
2. Resize the larger squirrel down until he is the same size as the other.
3. Overlap the two images until the squirrels are close together.
4. Select the top layer and the Eraser tool.
5. Set the Size to about 200 px and the Hardness to zero.
6. Erase the hard edge from the top image, until the snow looks continuous.

For the animation, we want the image to move on the screen beginning with all of the image on the screen and ending with a closeup of the two squirrels.

After combining the two images, the final image is still too small for the 1280 x 720 pixel screen. So we need to increase the dimensions. You know, we can't increase the actual size of the photo without loss of image quality. So we need to increase the size of the image by adding more image. For example, we can add more snow on each side and the bottom of the original image. To do this, we will duplicate the layer and use the Eraser tool to blend the images together as before.

1. Make a duplicate layer of the image.
2. Move the image on the top layer upward so that we have more snow below the squirrels.
   
   At this point, the snow added to the bottom is a copy of the snow on the top layer and it is too obvious what we have done. One trick is to flip the bottom layer horizontally which makes the snow look more random. The last step is to remove the straight edge from the top image.
   
   
3. Flip the bottom layer horizontally.
4. Select the top layer and remove the straight bottom edge with the eraser tool.
5. Repeat the previous steps to add snow to both sides of the image.

Photographs available at https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/

Squirrel In Winter and Squirrel In Snow by Petr Kratochvil