From Dallis Fontenot of Plano, Texas, on 4/25/07:
Hey Leo! I would love to know how you did the blending on the Marcon image!
Dallis Fontenot
Engineered Structures, Inc.
Plano, Texas
Here's the image Dallis is referring to:
Click on the graphic to see it enlarged.
On this shoot I employed a technique called "Bracketing"-making a series of underexposed, correctly exposed, and overexposed images over time. The intent is to capture details unavialable in a single exposure. For example, an underexposed image will provide details in the lights and sky, and the overexposed image will provide details in the shadows, both of which might be severely compromised if available at all in the correctly exposed frame. Shooting over time (in this case, about half an hour, but it can range into the hours) provides a selection of lighting effects produced by everything from the sun to the architectural lighting...even my own additions to the luminance of the subject ("Painting with Light," which will need to be its own post).
The camera was tripod mounted, of course, and a Canon 24mm L TSE lens was used. Perspective correction is best accomplished on the camera unless the persepective issues are very small-that too has been a subject in PAPAChat recently but will have to wait for its own post.
The fundamental tools used to mate the various exposures are:
- Layers
- Blending Modes
I've been struggling with which topics to breach first in this series, and both Layers and Blending Modes are among my choices. Dallis has presented an opportunity to introduce both in a single application, but because of their depth, multiple posts will be necessary to explore either in usable detail.
The basic strategy is to use a couple (I've used as many as 5, but try to keep things down to 2 or 3) exposures as separate Layers (Window>Layers) in a single document ("image"). The order of stacking will depend on the Blending Modes and Layer Sets you employ, so let's set ordering aside for the moment except to note that Layers at the top of the Layer Stack are in fact...at the top.
You add an image to another image as a Layer by simply selecting all of the first image (Ctl-A), then copying it to your "Clipboard" (Ctl-C), navigating back to the destination image by clicking on it, and pasting the Clipboard contents (Ctl-V). Of course, in this type of application the images must share exactly the same pixel dimensions and should bear the same .icm/.icc profile (yet another topic for another post-Color Management). It's best to set up your layered working files as 16 bit .tif files straight out of RAW conversion.
As long as your camera was perfectly static during the shoot (requiring a good tripod) and you didn't vary your aperture much if at all (lens performance varies significantly with aperture variance), the images should "register" or align perfectly with a minimum of Seidel and Chromatic issues (don't make the assumption that you don't really need to understand Geometric Optics in order to produce better images!).
Save your image frequently. Since I work in 16 bits I save my images as either .tif or .psd, both formats that are very friendly to Layers, Alpha Channels, Layer Transparencies, 16 bits per Channel, and other characteristics that are common in advanced image preparation techniques.
Assuming the above steps were successful, we have a multilayered image in which we will be able to rearrange the order of the Layers, Mask out portions of Layers we don't want to be used by our Blending Modes, apply Adjustment Layers and Fill Layers, and even dive deep into Photoshop if we need to employ Channel Operations ("ChOps") for extreme selection, color, or contrast manipulations.
Before we explore Layers any further, please take the time to review the basic Photoshop Help (F1) on both topics. Don't worry about Blending Modes for the moment-they're deep, and we'll not only be applying them in Layers but with Brushes!
L
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