[Tutorial] How to make your photos dynamic with merging - General

Hello fellow photographers on Facepunch, I've made this little tutorial to show you a nice method for photographing. It's called merging, and kind of works like HDR, except this doesn't look shit and you don't want to stick a fork in your eyes. For using this technique, you will need the following: A DSLR camera A tripod Basic knowledge on setting shuttertime, f-stop and ISO Basic knowledge on how to use photoshop (as in, I don't want to describe what a layer is) Right, let's get started. [b]Remember! This tutorial is just showing how to do it with 2 exposures, this can be done with 5 or even 100 if necessary[/b] It's basically a really simple technique, used by ALOT of professional photographers. They probably have their own way of doing it, and that's the beauty of Photoshop. You can do it exactly as you like. But this is how I do it, and it works out for me. To have something to work with, you'll need atleast 2 exposures. In my example I have a picture of a car at sunset. I want to use the nice colorful sky and the white car, but I can't get it in one exposure, because if I expose the sky right the car will be too dark, and if I expose the car right the sky will be overblown. So I start by taking a pic with the right exposure for the sky, then the car. Like shown below: [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/mork.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/lys.jpg[/IMG] Now it's time to start Photoshop, and open the two pics. Copy one of the pics and paste (in a new layer ofcourse) on the other pic, not necessarily in the same order as I did it. It doesn't matter. But it should look somewhat like this now: [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/1-12.jpg[/IMG] After this, you will need the pen tool to cut out the bottom part of the sky exposure pic, because we don't need that. If you don't know how to use the pen tool, you can use the polygonal lasso tool too. I just like to use pen tool because it's smoother. If you are using pen tool, settings should be like this: [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/2-12.jpg[/IMG] This is the boring part, start selecting like this: [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/3-8.jpg[/IMG] When you're done with that, right click and click "Make selection" (If using pen tool), and click OK. Now you can just cut out the part you selected. The picture should now begin to take shape like shown: [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/4-9.jpg[/IMG] And from here on, it's just about using your skills in Photoshop to post process the picture as you like it. I haven't made that many merges yet, but here's the final result of the BMW pic and another pic I did. [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/3-7.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c289/Ferosso/4-8.jpg[/IMG] [b]So let me know if you have any questions, and if you made some tries, feel free to post it in here and I'll let you know my opinion.[/b]

AHHH, so you're literally just cutting out the excess. I thought you had some other mystical methods at play, but it's good to show off to the others so they can give it a go. :eng101: [editline]1:11[/editline] God, I can't get enough of that Maersk shot.

Sexy. I thought for sure you were messing with transparencies or something but I guess not. Definitely going to give this a go.

You can mess with transparencies if you like. It's just generally how you do, you don't have to do it exactly like this.

awesome looks better than hdr thanks for the tutorial

[QUOTE=Moocow8;20202524]awesome looks better than hdr thanks for the tutorial[/QUOTE] It is HDR... Also nice tutorial, might give it a go later.

I don't like the second one as much. I think it's because you can still see the glare from the over exposed sun on the building

You're better off applying the pen tool path as a mask rather than deleting (read up on it), it's non destructive so you can adjust it as much as you want/need

I think it looks pretty bad, first off, the cut isn't hard to notice, second, it just doesn't seem to fit. Just my opinion.

Another possibility would be to 'screen' mode the darker layer over the lighter one, so the emphasised reflections are retained

There's a pretty universal way to basic tone mapping, and that's either with a dedicated tool, like Photomatrix, or just playing with the levels/curves with a merged HDRi. I'm personally not a fan of the technique used in this thread, because it lacks the natural overlap/conversion between the exposures. Some here also talks about using blend modes to merge the exposures, and there's a good technique shown [URL="http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-manipulation/layered-hdr-tone-mapping/page-2.html"]here.[/URL]

As I said I'm sure theres tons of ways to do it. I just wanted to help people who needs new ways of post processing. I'm no Photoshop guru but it works out for me. I can't do much about if you like the result or not. Edit: Might also say, that I started using this way of editing because I hate HDR pictures to death. I hate how the light changes on a flat surface from dark to light for no reason, I hate how everything gets an aura, I hate how everything reflects (if it's a car) and I hate the huge hype on HDR and how it's basically a software that generates the final picture. I know you can change settings and stuff, but you're not using your eyes to make an outcome exactly as you want it. I often use the "merge" technique on single exposures too, and it works out well for me. Here's an old single exposure pic I did: [img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2588/3991476704_5d69cfd0f3_b.jpg[/img]

Relax, I didn't want to sound rude or anything. But when it comes to this particular subject, I've done my share of research the last 4 years, and I've found that the tone mapping technique used in "Photomatrix", "Essential HDR", and even Photoshop's "Local Adaption" conversion of a 32bit image, to be the far more powerful. Here's a good article on tone mapping with [URL="http://www.secondpicture.com/tutorials/photography/tone_mapping.html"]Photomatrix.[/URL] Also, remember that there are many areas of functionality when it comes to HDR images, not just tone mapping.

There are some gaps in the concrete edge which I think you should have masked out as well. But of course I understand it's just a tutorial.

[QUOTE=Jeggis;20214199]Relax, I didn't want to sound rude or anything. But when it comes to this particular subject, I've done my share of research the last 4 years, and I've found that the tone mapping technique used in "Photomatrix", "Essential HDR", and even Photoshop's "Local Adaption" conversion of a 32bit image, to be the far more powerful. Here's a good article on tone mapping with [URL="http://www.secondpicture.com/tutorials/photography/tone_mapping.html"]Photomatrix.[/URL] Also, remember that there are many areas of functionality when it comes to HDR images, not just tone mapping.[/QUOTE] Relax? wat But yeah, anyways, looking at those pics of the windmill upsets me. It looks horrible, I really can't stand that look. And as previously stated, that's why I developed this way of editing (Not saying that nobody did it before me etc., I just made up my own technique). I want my pics to look more natural, to see what the eye sees. Just with some extra eyecandy.

I would agree with Jeggis that compositing bracketed exposures using an HDR program like Photomatix is the most natural way to do the job. Rather than cutting and pasting together certain areas of a picture that appear to be properly exposed (often resulting in mismatches and discontinuity), tonemapping attempts to increase the range of exposure values for the whole image to try to artificially mimic the properties of the human eye. If you feel as though you lose control when a program processes the image for you, you should try qtpfsgui AKA Luminance HDR. It offers fairly indepth tonemapping options that can give you what you're looking for.

Nah, trust me when I say, I'm never gonna do the HDR as you think of it. It's a hype, and I don't like it. The thing about this technique is that I can have every single little pixel as I want it if necessary.

[quote=perfumly;20211672]it is hdr... Also nice tutorial, might give it a go later.[/quote] thanks for the correction!!!!!