Pro Photography Learning: Simple Layering

Friday, December 14, 2012
(partly cloudy and mild)

Simple Layering

(Photoshop)

Introduction

If you've ever photographed a landscape on a slightly cloudy day, you'll know how the lighting on that landscape can change. So, I'll stay in 1 place, and take many photos of the same scene with different light illuminating parts of the scene differently each time.

The problem then is that HDR (High Dynamic Range) will not work in Photoshop unless you bracket in increments of at least 1 f-stop over and/or under! You can change the exposure in Photoshop to accommodate Photoshop and HDR, but that's not what I want! As for telling Adobe to do that, I asked them to give me a free copy of the next PS, and I got lambasted to no end by the "experts"of the Photoshop "community". So rather than post there anymore about any problems I have, I'll write them down her.

Personally, I find that the more I use Photoshop, the more problems and"irritations" I have with the program. Photoshop works, but I have to use it their way, and there re infinite small "tweaks" (adjustments) that could make PS work faster, and more comfortable, but you'll almost never read anyone complain!

Part 1

I have a dozen ATM spot lights, but my small tabletop set-up in my basement works best with 2-4 lights. However, I usually work with 2 at the most. I don't like to work in an uncomfortable workspace where I have to constantly worry about tripping or bumping into equipment.

The disadvantage to only working with 2 lights, is that I can't get the exact highlights on a tabletop item or product that I'd like. So what I do is use the same camera setting (f-stop a must), and slightly alter the shutter speed (1/2 - 1/2) f-stop if needed). I then reposition the lights to highlight different parts of the set-up or item, and use small reflectors.

Unfortunately, as I mention in the introduction, Photoshop and its HDR won't work if the bracketing (varied exposures + and -) is less than 1 f-stop! So what I do is use layers, and simply add parts of 1 image to another for nicer highlights.

The Opening Window

2 slightly different photos in terms of subtle lighting

I dragged 1 photo unto and into the second photo. The top layer is the one you want to work with, and in this screen-capture, the bottom image is the one needing to be on the top! So, in this window above, I'll simply drag the bottom image to the top position.

The potential problem here is that the 2 photos are so similar, it's easy to get them confused. Confusion gets even moreso,when you have 3-10 layers! What you want to do is give the layers new names. You do this by clicking inside the name box, and then typing over the old name a new name.

The layers were renamed, and I changed the positions of the images.

I want to erase the front dark grill of the top image, to expose the nice grill of the bottom.

I'll be using the eraser tool.

I did a "rough" erase .

Notice how the "checkerboard starts to show, menaing that there is nothing in the erased part.

Here's how the car looks now.

I like the highlight on the roof (top), and that's what I kept the top image, but wanted the bottom grill portion for the combination photo.

This is the screen-capture of the eraser too settings.

Of course, I'll adjust them to make the erasing of the front grill more precise.

Personally, I like to set the "opacity" are 30%-50% so I remove a bit at a time.

I hardly ever use the flow adjustment.

I also wanted to bring out more detail in the shadows of the side of the car.

Here's the added eraser effect on the layer menu

The red arrows are showing you the differences in the detail between the 2 shadow areas.

The blue arrows are pointing to the "dotted line" (marching ants) that I created with the

magnetic lasso. Creating a "capture" will allow me to work fast buy only erase the parts that I need.

I needed to do an adjustment to my eraser. As I mentioned before, I prefer to erase a certain amount each time that I pass over the area needing removal. Notice how I set the eraser to 27%. I also am using a "softer" brush set to 26%. This makes the transition between the erased part and the "kept" parts softer, and harly noticeable from the before and after effects.

Notice how the "checkered" background is Greyish, meaning that the entire portion was NOT removed! THa'ts what I meant by "gradually" removing the area part at a time. This makes for a better overall erase.

A close-up of the finished result.

This is when I did a 100% erase. Notice the difference in shades!

Oh! Oh!

A problem!

Notice how the rear of the car is out-of-focus,yet the 2 originl separate photos are sharply-focussed.

It turns out that the 2 photographs that I took were not taken exactly from the exact same position.

I must have accidently moved the camera.

I needed to move 1 layer to the side in order to get 100% overlap of the car images.

However, I am now off slightly to the left vertical border. I could crop it out, or erase the top part, or use the rubber stamp. I didn't think of these 3 options, but simply went with the rubber stamp.