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hiyall, im fairly fluent with CS, but one thing ive not ventured into is blending multiple images, does anyoine feel like giving me a quick synopsys / rundown on your own preferences on how you do it?

G'day Darb,
There's probably swags of different ways, I found this simple procedure on another site and use it heaps, only takes a few seconds using two different exposures, or even the same pic with different EV settings when converting from NEF:
1) open both the low exposure and high exposure images,
2) make the low exposure image current
3) ^A (to select all) then ^C (to copy to buffer)
4) make high exposure image current
5) ^V to paste the low exposure image into the high exposure image
6) Go to layers, make sure the pasted low exposure layer is current
then make a mask but clicking the icon that looks like a camera from
the front (didn't know how else to explain it...)
7) Alt-click on the mask window (the white window in the pasted layer
pallette) This should give you a white screen/image
Then paste into the white screen, this should give you a black and
white image
9) Then just click on the background layer to make it current and hey
presto! Merged exposures...
10) Then you can make the mask layer current and hide the background
and clean up erasing the bits of the mask you don't want...

Cheers mate.

ok cheers

you lost me at point 10 however ... how i go about using a "brush" or some such thing to rub through only certain parts of the background, or indeed "make the mask layer current and hide the background
and clean up erasing the bits of the mask you don't want...
"

the pasting in step 5 vs step 7, why the doubleup? (yep works, just curious )

darb wrote:ok cheers

you lost me at point 10 however ... how i go about using a "brush" or some such thing to rub through only certain parts of the background, or indeed "make the mask layer current and hide the background
and clean up erasing the bits of the mask you don't want...
"

G'day Darb,
Just in the middle of something and got your message...

10) If you hide the background layer (by clicking the "eye" symbol on the background layer in the layer pallette), you should only see the remnants of the masked image/layer left, just the faded bits that makeup the mask. Then make the mask layer current (by clicking on it in the layers pallette, but not the "eye" symbol) and you can then use the eraser to erase any mask remnants you don't want... The mask has to be current for the eraser to work on it...

I haven't made actions before but if you have trouble lemme know and I'll try making it into an action...

Cheers mate.

darb wrote:the pasting in step 5 vs step 7, why the doubleup? (yep works, just curious )

Not sure, but I think it basically turns the pasted layer into the mask itself...

Cheers...

actually i just figured out how to do what i want another way ... just by pasting one layer over the other and using the eraser tool on the pasted layer to delete the bits i dont want overriding.

cheers tho, so much stuff one can do with layers eh !

darb wrote:actually i just figured out how to do what i want another way ... just by pasting one layer over the other and using the eraser tool on the pasted layer to delete the bits i dont want overriding.

cheers tho, so much stuff one can do with layers eh !

G'day, PSCS is a powerful tool huh... It's amazing what you can do with it... Pasting the low exposure over the high was what I used to do before but I found this was just so quick (once you've done this a few times it takes only a few seconds and it's done cleanly and I can't tell it's a blended image) and it also didn't seem to leave the tell-tale signs of the erasing. Especially with the tricky bits like around foliage and complex areas etc...

I seemed to be able to pick a blended image when I used the eraser, but this seems to gradually blend from one to the other seamlessly and I can't pick it in the end result...

There's swags of ways...

Cheers.