When one blends images, one thing that one needs to do over and over again, is to load different exposures into Photoshop layers. Depending on what program you use, this can be done in many ways, and here I will show you 4 of them.

1.Copy & Paste

Probably the worst way to do this, is just to load all photos into photoshop, and then one by one select the photo (Ctrl+A), copy the photo (Ctrl+C) and then paste into a single file (Ctrl+V). Of course you can also open the brackets next to each other, and drag and drop. Here I would suggest holding Shift while dragging, as that will center the photo in the new file automatically.

Drag & Drop in Photoshop

Loading from Lightroom

2. From Lightroom

It’s already much simpler in Lightroom. Here you can either select the files in the library view, or in the bottom photo list, and just right click on any of the photo and choose Open in Layers into Photoshop. This will export all selected files and open them right away in one in Photoshop.

3. From Bridge

This is similar in Bridge. Here you can also just choose any files you want, and by selecting Tools/Photoshop/Load files into Photoshop layers all the images will be loaded into one file. This is my favorite way of doing this, as I often include also the HDR tonemapped image, which I don’t import into Lightroom at all.

Loading from Bridge

Using Photoshop script

4. Directly from Photoshop

But what to do when you don’t have Lightroom, and cant acces Bridge? There is a way to load files into layers also directly from Photoshop. To do this, you have to go under File/Scripts/Load files into Stack. In the new window that opens, you have to choose Brows and choose which files you want to include. Once this is confimed, all selected files will be loaded into layers of a single file.

If you took the images hand-held, you can also check the option for Photoshop to try and align the exposures.

Free DxO Optics Pro 8

I came across another free software offer, this time it the DxO Optics Pro 8. And to get it, you just have to go to this page and enter your email address. So what are you waiting for? :)

Cloudy skies

I don’t really like photos with just white skies that much, but sometimes it can’t be helped. What I tend to do in those cases is just try to include as much of the foreground as I can, and as little as possible of the sky. Same here.

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, crated in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop. This photo was taken at the Schwarzsee uner Matterhorn.

There are so many ways to sharpen a photo, and it usually is not enough to know only one way. One needs to use the one that is currently available, and provides the best results. So in this post, I will go through some of the sharpening methods I use, or have tried out :)

First thing firs. I really suggest to sharp the photo once it’s in the size you plan to use. If you sharpen a full size photo, and then downsize it, you will lose a lot of the sharpness in the process. So first resize, then sharpen.

1. Lightroom sharpen

Probably the simplest sharpening you can find. And if you are already using Lightroom to organize your photos (as most of you probably do anyway :)) it’s a sharpening thats always on hand. You can find it the Develop module under Detail. You add it just by changing the amount slider. You can of course tweak it more with Radius – only bigger details get sharpened, Detail – how much additional detail is created and Masking – removes the smaller detail and focuses on corners. All there are dependent on the Amount setting, so if that is low, these will also have a small effect.

I personally use this mostly for photos I don’t plan to edit in Photoshop. I use a Amount of around 60 to 70, and leave other settings at their default. Btw. you will also notice, that default value is not 0, as Lightroom adds a little sharpening to all raw photos automatically.

Lightroom sharpening

Unsharp mask

2. Unsharp Mask

The most basic, and still very useful, sharpening in Photoshop. I really don’t know what Unshrap mask means, but it works great anyway. There are two ways you can use this filter. You can use it in two ways. Either by using a high Amount and low Radius, which will give you sharpness, or small Amount and high radius, which will give you more local contrast. It’s always good to try both.

When using this to sharpen for web, it usually best to go with a very small radius (less than 1px) and with a very high amount (more than 200). This will give the best result.

You can find it under Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask in Photoshop.

3. Smart sharpen

This is another filter directly in Photoshop. It works similar to Unsharp mask, but the result can be more refined in some image. I use it the same as Unsharp mask, with a high amount and small radius. But again, only on the already resized photo destined for web, not on the full size. It can also reduce noise, but I would suggest using a dedicated noise reduction plug-in for that, to get better results.

You can find it under Filter/Sharpen/Smart sharpen

Smart sharpen

High pass filter

4. High pass filter

A very popular method in Photoshop, that creates really nice results. What you do, is create a merged copy of the image (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E), on the new layer, choose Filter/Other/High Pass and choose a value at around 2px. Then jsut change the blend mode of the layer to Soft light. The higher value for High pass you use, the less this is about sharpness and more about local contrast. So depending on how big the photo is, you have to experiment to get a value that gives you best results.

I would not use this to sharpen a photo for web. It’s more useful to get a detail and sharpness into a full resolution photo, which you would then sharpen once more with a different method once it is resized.

5. TK Actions

The TK actions are not really a sharpening tool, as they use Unsharp mask as their sharpening method. But what they offer are Web sharepenig actions that do the sharpening settings for you. You only choose the size, and the action will do multiple passes of sharpening on a photo to get your result. This is currently my favorite way to sharpen photos for web.

You can find more about the actions on Tony Kuyper page here.

6. Nik Sharpener Pro

If you had bought the Nik plug-ins suite (which is wroth it just for Color Efex alone), you also get a Nik Sharpener plugin. It can really add a huge amount of sharpness, but I don’t use it so much. I feel that it creates too much small detail, which makes it too easy to over-sharpen the photo. Still I know that this is a favorite way to sharpen for many photographers. If you have Nik, give it a try.

For more info, check out the Nik page.

Nik Sharpener Pro

Topaz Detail

7. Topaz Detail

This plug-in is not just about sharpening, as it can do much much more. It can add sharpness based on the detail size, or brightness. It also can add color or change brightness levels, and include a huge number of presets. This plug-in is less about just making you photo sharp, but more about adding more detail to areas of the photo.

For more info, check out the Topaz page.

And many more

There are of course many more plugins, actions and ways to sharpen. For me currently the most used are high pass, unsharp mask and TK action. What are yours?

The Burj Khalifa is really not a place for people who are afraid of heights. Luckily I’m not. I even enjoy this crazy views :) I’s more fascination than scary for me. And of course in a place like Dubai, this is even more true.

This is a HDR from 4 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

Today, I will show you how I edited this late night photo from Dubai. This is of course the Burj Khalifa, as seen with a long lens from the Palm Jumeirah. So let’s start.

Here you have the final photo and the original 0EV exposure. As you can see, it was really missing a lot of contrast. I also wanted to get more detail, make the buildings in the background more visible, and mostly, tweak the color, so it fit more with the strong neon color of the top of the Burj Khalifa.

Finished photo

Original 0EV

As always I started in Lightroom. I removed lens distortion, vignetting, and tweaked the tint, so it’s more purple. Then I exported all the exposures as 16-bit tiff files.

All exposures in Lightroom 

Lightroom tweaks

After that, I loaded all the exposures into Oloneo Photoengine, and added strength and contrast. I then loaded the result into Photoshop together with all the original exposures. The edits I did there were the following (layers numbered from bottom up)
1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. Color efex pro contrast, but only on the buildings, as I wanted more local contrast just there.
3. A little overall contrast
4+5. More contrast to the brightest areas. I put the layer in a group with its own layer mask, as I wanted the effect just in few areas.
6. During the edit I decided that I want the whole photo purple, so I blended few parts from the -2EV exposure to change few lights.
7. Just a merged copy I forgot to remove :)
8. Color efex Darken/lighten center, to add a vignette back.
9. TK Actions vibrance mask, to tone down the most saturated colors
10. A little more overall contrast

Oloneo Photoengine

Photoshop Edit

And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here: