In the fourth and final video in the 2 image photo blending series, I blend two images from Moraine Lake. One of the draw cards to using luminosity masks is the ability to have the ultimate control in digital photo blending. This gives us the ability to stop using graduated filters in the field. Giving us the confidence we can replicate it in post. We can do a lot better than replicate it, we can improve on it significantly.
Photoshop gives us many ways of achieving the same or similar results in our editing. This is very important, as some techniques may work better in certain situations. I cover 3 separate methods for image blending, to give you multiple options. Not every set of images we edit will yield the same results using the same techniques. There are many more then 3 different ways images can be blended. I cover the topic of blending a lot in my free tutorials. Check more videos to learn additional ways to complete image blending, or our luminosity video workshop.
My favourite method of digital blending is to use the graduated filter tool in Photoshop. This allows you to easily and quickly blend two exposures. This gives virtually the exact same result you would have achieved with a filter in the field. We take it one step further in this tutorial and paint away the darkening caused by the graduated filter. Using luminosity masks we make a selection of the dark areas affected. Then with a black brush we’ll paint away the blending in the areas we don’t want affected.
The Apply – Adjust – Replace tool in ADP LumiFlow allows you to test different masks, or modify existing masks. This allows you to play with masks used during the image blend to get the perfect mask. With the lighter image on top, we use a darks mask to reveal the darker sky from the image below. We then do something you haven’t seen us do before, and clean up the blend by simply painting with a solid brush.
We repeat the same steps that we used in method 2, accept we start with the darker image on top. This shows that there are multiple ways of achieving the same results, giving us many options in our editing.