Blending photos using Luminosity selections

The process here is almost exactly the same as when you are editing photos using luminosity selections. So as in the last article let’s take an example to show you how it’s done. I will be blending these three exposures here.

We will start again with a photo, for which we created the Bright 1 to 4 selections and Dark 1 to 4 selections. Additionally to that, I will put the brighter exposure and darker exposure on separate layers, both hidden (they have to be hidden when you create the luminosity selections, or else they will be made from them not the base image).

So what’s our goal here? If you look at the image, you will see some areas that are too bright and some that are too dark. The goal here is to brighten the dark areas by using the overexposed photo and darken the bright areas using the underexposed photo. You could look at it as if you cut up the photo into puzzle pieces and then put together a new one using all the best pieces from all the exposures. Let’s start.

Blending in the dark areas

1. Make the brighter layer visible, and add a black mask to it (hold down Alt and click on the add mask button). This will again make the layer invisible.
2. Go into the Channels window and with Ctrl+click select one of the Dark selections. The best process is to select each one going from 1 up until you see the selections that best matches the area you want to blend. Just look at the marching ants that show the selection. Usually having a selection that’s a bit bigger than what you want to select here, works the best. For this photo, I will choose the Dark 3 selection
3. Go back into the layers window. Click on the mask next to the brighter layer to select it. Choose the brush tool, white color, 0% hardness, 50% opacity. Hide the selection by pressing Ctrl+H. It is still there just not visible.
4. Now that all is prepared, you can start painting into the mask. Everywhere you paint, you are painting with the brighter layer into the base layer. To get more brightness in, paint over the same spot multiple times.
5. Continue doing this until all the areas are brightened as much as you want them to be. If you feel you overdone it, just switch to a black color and paint over the same spot to remove the blend.

Create selection

Paint it in

Finished mask

Blending in the bright areas

1. Fist deselect the selection you already have, with Ctrl+D. You don’t see it as it’s hidden, but it’s there. Same as before, make the darker layer visible and add a black mask to it.
2. Go into the Channels window, and choose one of the selections, based on which one fits the photo the best. Again, go through all the bright selection starting from 1, and choose the one that selects the area you need to edit the best. Again, bo with a bit bigger selection to what you need. That results in a better blend. Here I have chosen the Bright 2 one.
3. Return to the layers, select the mask on the darker layer, and start painting with the white brush on it, until you recover all the bright areas.

Create selection

Paint it in

Finished mask

Blended photo

And we end up with a photo that has the dark areas brightened and the bright areas darkened. Of course, this is not the finished photo. There are still thing one would have to correct, mostly the contrast. As I mentioned with the other edits, contrast is lost anytime you work with bright and dark areas of a photo.

This explains the basics of blending. If you need to blend more exposures, you do the exact same thing. You choose the base you want to work with and blend other exposures into it as I showed here. The only difference is, that you have to recreate your selections. As they are created from the base layer, once you blended in something into the base layer, they will no longer be as accurate as you need them to be.

So if I had a photo taken at 0EV, and I blend in a -1EV exposures to darken the highlights, I would have to create new selections if I wanted to blend in the -2EV photo to darken them even more. This is where Photoshop extensions like Raya pro and TK actions make the whole process much easier.

Evening at the Douro river

I wanted to post a daytime photo from Portugal today, but I did not like the ones I edited. When I was there it was just too hot and sunny, for the photos to look like I wanted. So in the end I went with another evening photo here.

This one was taken in the town Barca De Alva at the Douro river, close to the Spanish border. This is a blend of 5 exposures, done in Photoshop. I really needed all of them, as it was already quite dark and the bridge is lit up very brightly.

Taking photos without a tripod

• Place the camera on something – If you can, put your camera on something, a bench, wall, pillar, anything with a flat top. Then push your camera down so it stays firmly in place when you are taking the photo.
• Brace yourself against something – If you can not place the camera on anything, try bracing yourself against something. Lean on a railing, pillar, sit on a bench, on the floor. The less your body is moving, the more stable will you be able to hold the camera.
• Hold your camera close to your body – Your body is always moving, holding the camera away form the body will transfer much more movement to it. Hold it close to you, so minimizing this movements.
• Use a timer – Pressing the shutter button will move your camera. Even on a tripod this can cause movement. Set your camera to a two second timer, so it takes the shot automatically. The less movement the better.
• Underexpose your photo – If you shoot in a RAW format, you can easily underexpose all you photos by 1 to 3 stops (depending on your camera) and still get a good photo. You just overexpose it later in post-processing. Each stop down splits in half the time needed to take the photo, so one stop down is 1/2 the time, two stops is 1/4 of the time needed and 3 stops is 1/8 of the time needed. So for instance, if you need a 1s exposure taken handheld, just by underexposing by 3 stops, you shorten this to 1/8th of a second.
• Set minimum exposure time – On some cameras you can set up the ISO speed settings. This is an option where you can set the longest exposure time the camera uses in automatic modes. So if you see that you just can’t hold a 1/25s or 1/50s steady enough, you can set you camera to always use a shutter speed shorter than 1/125 or 1/250 and similar. You of course limit this by the max ISO you set in the camera. If you set this up, you can be sure that you camera stays in faster shutter speeds, so you have better chance of sharp photos.
• Take multiple shots with the same settings – Don’t take just one photo, take multiple photos with the same settings. You can put your camera into burst mode, and just hold the shutter down. If you take multiple photos, there is a bigger chance one of them will be good. If you take only one, you just have to be lucky.
• Forget about bracketing – Bracketing exposures in pointless when shooting handheld anyway. I know photographers that do it, but I personally never been able to get a really good result by doing so. Even in very bright situations. The shots never align anyway. Rather, take multiple same exposures, or underexpose the shot. By using RAW you will get enough information most of the time anyway.

This one is one of the very few photos I took without a tripod. Here I pout the camera on wall, and hold it down to keep steady.

At the canals in Amsterdam

Let’s stop by Amsterdam with today’s photo. I tried to include the bicycles here, as I do with most of my Amsterdam photos, as the canals with them just identify the city so nicely. Actually while I was taking this one, a car passed behind me, and lit up the bicycles. It was only on one exposure, but I could blend it in easily. Really great to have multiple exposures to work with :)

This is a 5 exposure blend, done in Photoshop.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

All social networks are different. And one joins them for many different reasons. I joined Facebook because of my friends. Instagram to share photos and follow other photographers. Twitter mostly from curiosity. There are one’s where one shares more, and ones where one reads more. But over time I lost most of my interest in them. I removed Facebook from my phone around a year ago, and don’t plan to add it back. Instagram is still there, but have not been used in a while. But I do visit Twitter daily.

I though abut why this is, and in the end I found the reason. The biggest difference is, why I follow people (and companies) on these different social networks. There is a different reason for every single one.

• On Facebook, I follow mostly family, friends and acquaintances. But over time, I noticed, that those that I care about, I talk to and meet outside of Facebook, so I don’t need to check on them there. And the rest is just too much information I don’t need.
• On Instagram, I follow accounts based on how good or interesting their photos are. It’s all about photography. I don’t think I followed anyone there for a different reason. Of course as a photographer I’m interested in photos but I don’t feel the need to check them out all the time. It’s same as with 500px and Flickr. I go there sometime, but don’t feel the need to be there all the time.
• On Twitter, I follow accounts that share stuff I like. I have many interests and there are a lot of accounts that fit them. People share about photography, movies, books, games, software, anime, models, drawing, culture and much much more. Like this, my feed is very diverse, full of stuff I like. I also find there is much less personal updates, which you get much more on Facebook or Instagram. It feels more as a place to share ones interests. And that’s why recently I been mostly just there.

This all could be because how the different social networks started, and what kind of content they were build for. Even if you can find everything everywhere, there are still associations to the content they have been started for.

What are you still using? Or nothing anymore, like a lot of people tend to do now. Maybe the era of booming social networks is over. Who knows.

You can find me on Twitter here.