Digital Blending

[matonanjin]

I am trying to figure out how to use layers and a mask to "blend" two images of different exposures into one image. If I have a photographs of a high contast subject I will bracket exposures.

I have been doing this by cropping either the light scenes or the dark portions into the opposite image. This works. But I know there is a way to do this using layers, copying each image to a layer and then using a mask to blend.

The mask to blend is the part I can't figure out.

If I am not explaining sufficiently this link can explain what I am trying to do, but it is using Photoshop and its commands:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutor ... ding.shtml.

The second part, the "Layer Mask", is what I am trying to learn how to do.

I have searched tutorials and found some on layers but not on what I am trying to do here.

Thanks in advance.

And yes, I know to learn PI I need to sign up for the Beginers workshop and I have done that.

[mikefoster]

No sure what version of PI you have.

But in PI12


open the 2 images you want to blend.
create a new image
copy and paste the 2 images into this new image
the images will automatically be in their own layers
select the top most (image) layer
Now use the erase tool from the toolbox
set brush size to around 70 and make sure the set the soft brush of at least 70 in the attribute bar
start erasing the image. as you do this the image below will start to show through giving a very smooth transition. Just play around and you'll get the idea.

Good luck

[matonanjin]

Mike,

Thank you. I didn't think anyone was ever going to respond to this. I will try that.

I was just trying to crop from one image and then paste it onto the other. Tedious but it did work.

Thanks again.

BTW, I am using PI 12.

Ron

[mikefoster]

I'm glad it helped

Good Luck!

[MaryLouW]

I'm not exactly what you're trying to accomplish but maybe this tutorial will help:

http://wwell.net/tutorials/pi12/bodypainting/