exposure blending

the complete guide from

camera to process

christopher odonnell

what is exposure blending? how exposure blending works when & why to auto-bracket

ghosting & sensor bloom creating the selection refining the mask the overlay brush sensor bloom & exposure blending final adjustments to the blend 48 introduction to luminosity masks

auto-bracketing overview 10 what is raw? raw adjustments vs. auto-bracketing the versatility of bracketing how to auto-bracket

creating an alpha channel highlight vs. shadow selections refining luminosity selections creating the luminosity mask transitions with luminosity masks finishing touches final thoughts

bracketing: step-by-step manual bracketing final tips on bracketing editing in photoshop evaluating the brackets preparing to blend the blending workflow

14

71 72 73 about christopher other ebooks copyright information

brushwork and halos 26 advanced blending

when to use refined masks

what is exposure blending?

Exposure blending is one of the most powerful ways to create a stunning photograph. As youve probably noticed, it can be difficult to capture an entire landscape accurately (especially those with a sky) because your camera sensor is limited to one aperture and one shutter speed at a time its not possible to have two different settings within the same frame. Youll often note that your photos rarely live up to what you actually saw exposure blending is one way to overcome the limitations of your camera and photograph a landscape with the full tonal range that you see in the field. Simply put, in order to have a well-exposed landscape youll need one image exposed for the brightest tones in your photo (typically the sky) and another for the darkest tones (the ground, usually) when the lighting isnt suitable to capture it all in one exposure think of sunsets and how differently the natural light level is when you compare the sky to the ground. Once you have your two extremes, youll blend them together to make one perfectly exposed landscape. Exposure blending can also be referred to as HDR blending in the sense that were expanding the tonal range, and this method will create a more natural looking image than tone-mapping with automated software. With exposure/ HDR blending, you have much more control over the end result by manually choosing exactly where you want to blend your exposures together - and at what strength you want the blend to be. Its a method that is entirely customizable to your scene, which will produce a more pleasing result.

how exposure blending works

In addition to these two photos on the extreme ends, a middle exposure (one thats been light metered for the entire image, finding a middle ground between your fastest and longest exposure) is good to have as well for any middle ground elements you need to blend in. At times, the gap between your fast and slow exposure may be so great, that you end up skipping the optimal exposure for those elements that fall in between the two. An example of this would be the water in the below images. Notice how the image exposed for the ground (left) has the water slightly overexposed, and the image meters for the sky (right) has some noticeable shadows. A middle exposure was needed to balance this out. For intricate images with vast tonal needs - a scene with many shadows and highlights - its not uncommon to have 5 or more photos of the same scene at your disposal. The range of your exposures will depend entirely on how bright your highlights are and how dark the shadows appear. For example, a cloudy day will have very little difference in exposure, but a golden hour image may have 5 or more stops to your complete tonal range. The two different exposures to the left show how vast the differences can be in order to capture the full tonal range of the scene. As you can see, the setting sun caused some problems in exposure. The image where the foreground is exposed well (slower shutter speed) has an extremely overexposed sky, while the photo exposed for the sky (faster shutter speed) has the foreground in complete shadow. To get a proper exposure, I needed to combine these two images (in addition to my base exposure for the water) to get the result shown to the right. I dont want you to be concerned with the how part just yet - we will get to that later on. For now, the take-away point is that to get a full tonal range, youll need to combine different shutter speeds into one image.

1. when & why to auto-bracket

auto-bracketing overview
To get three different exposures of the same scene, you dont have to calculate your settings and manually input a different shutter speed. Auto-bracketing is a common feature with digital SLRs, which allows you to capture one photo exposed normally (your base image), and then will automatically expose two more one directly after the other - of a slower and faster shutter speed than your base. The difference in exposure will depend on your camera and chosen settings, but usually 2 full stops is the maximum increase/decrease from your base photo that you can use autobracketing for. This is where the term auto-bracketing comes from since youre bracketing your images off automatically by capturing the same scene at different exposures within X amount of stops. This allows you to capture three sequential images of different exposures without having to adjust your settings manually its very handy, and helps to streamline your workflow when youre presented with a wide tonal range that one exposure can not contain. For more intense differences in lighting - as youll often find for sunrises and sunsets - youll still have to adjust your settings manually to capture more of a range in exposure than two stops (or whatever your cameras auto-bracketing limit is). Ill explain how to do this soon, but first I want to show you why you should auto-bracket instead of adjusting just one RAW file.

what is raw?
For brevity, a RAW file is the digital equivalent of a film negative before it is printed onto paper - the raw state of your image that you cant really use as a photo, but all the information you need to create a photo is there. A website or email it to others without special viewing software, but you can take that RAW file and turn it into a universal image. RAW is preferable to JPG in many ways, most notably because of image quality. When you take a photo in JPG format, it is instantly compressed - and this compression processing capabilities. With a film negative, you can adjust the exposure by exposing the negative onto your paper for longer or - at least, for a limited amount of stops. Since youre working with the unprocessed digital negative, you can recover some blown highlights or blocked shadows by adjusting the exposure of your RAW file before or print, such as JPG or TIFF. RAW does have its limitations however - it does not exposure, and it is always best to achieve a proper image in-camera. A RAW file will typically give you two stops of recovery capability - if you adjust the exposure more than two stops beyond the original exposure, you most to notice the quality to deteriorate. shorter amounts of time. RAW allows you to do the same give you the power to shoot blindly with no regard to You can artificially adjust the exposure of a JPG image in post process, but this is not a true exposure adjustment and will not recover any data for you. In the example images, we can see the true benefit of RAW when trying see that while the foreground is exposed accurately, the sky is noticeably overexposed - a common occurrence. Figure 2 shows how much detail is recovered by reducing the exposure by two full stops in RAW editing. In contrast, Figure 3 displays the same reduction in exposure (two stops) for the JPG version. Since the JPG file holds no additional data, the exposure is artificially is no recovery of data, and the photo looks noticeably worse than the RAW adjustment. RAW file is just that - you cant upload a RAW file to your to recover these blown highlights. In Figure 1, you can

will take detail away from your photo, thus limiting your reduced simply by adding a layer of black tones - there

converting it into a more universal file format for display likely will not recover any additional data and will start

raw adjustments vs. auto-bracketing

With RAW being such a versatile format for editing, why is there a need to auto-bracket when you can simply adjust the exposure in RAW and import all those exposures into one file? It would save you the time of setting up a tripod, taking three (or more) images, as well as saving on disk space I thought RAW was supposed to be a magical exposure recovery tool? Its always best to capture the optimal exposure for a scene in-camera simply because youll have more data in an actual photo than an image adjusted artificially even if its in RAW. The more data that is retained, the more detailed your image will be. Auto-bracketing is superior to RAW for the following reasons: Im going to compare a scene where I underexposed my photo by two full stops using auto-bracketing with my camera vs. dropping the exposure in RAW. Taking the overexposed version that was adjusted in RAW from the previous page and zooming in on the recovered sky (Figure 1), you can see that there is still some overexposed areas. When compared to Figure 2 - the photo that I took two stops lower with my auto-bracketing - you can see that more detail was retained in the sky that RAW could not recover. So while RAW provides a great recovery tool, its more of a last effort way to adjust your exposure when you have no other alternative, or if you only need a very minor exposure adjustment. Adjusting your exposure in-camera will always give you a superior quality when compared to RAW adjustments, and is worth the extra effort of autobracketing.

2.

While RAW is a great, low-damage, accurate way

to adjust your exposure, its still better to capture the image with your camera to make sure you have the highest quality photo.

1. You may need more range in your exposure than

what RAW can offer you. Typically, you can only adjust your exposure +/- two full stops in RAW before you start to see damage depending on what youre photographing, you may need 3, 5 or even 10 stops difference between your brightest and darkest photos.

the versatility of bracketing

Although RAW can not replace autobracketing, its still a file format that has many benefits over JPG and should be used when you bracket. Not only is there more data in RAW format, but youll greatly increase your tonal range for editing. If you auto-bracket in JPG format, youll typically be taking three images your base image, one taken slower - for a total range of four stops. However, if you shoot in RAW format, you can increase or decrease your exposures by two stops in post process. That safety net will add another two your bracket, bringing your total tonal range up to eight stops (assuming you stop increments). Exposure blending and bracketing is not dark grounds you can use it in many different ways. You can recover blown as a no-damage way to dodge and burn full stops to your range on both ends of just for combining bright skies with Blending exposures using one RAW file is best for those candid shots where tripod but need to correct some blown highlights, or simply want to brighten/ darken parts of your image like in wedding or action photography. Its a fantastic way to save an otherwise unusable photo, but if you have the landscape for exposure blending, this is the method which will give you the highest quality output with the largest tonal range. Another popular use of this technique is to blend different long exposures together - for example, blending an extended exposure that captures moving clouds with an image that shows stationary grass that would otherwise be windswept if taken at the same shutter speed as the sky: the possibilities are endless. your landscapes, or to blend a brighter foreground with a darker sky (like you didnt have enough time to set up a under stormy, overcast skies).

two stops faster, and another two stops time and ability to auto-bracket your

shoot three auto-bracket images in two- highlights in water reflections, use it

Now that you know why we auto-bracket for exposure blending, its time to go over the in-camera workflow; the process I go through to capture those bracketed images to later blend in post process.

2. how to auto-bracket

The most important part to digital exposure blending is to auto-bracket the correct way, giving you a solid base to edit your image in post process. You cant create a stunning photo in the digital dark room you can only improve upon an alreadyproper image. With that in mind, Im going to show you how to execute an auto-bracket the correct way so that you can capture images with an outstanding tonal range, like this example. Ill also explain how to bracket your images manually for those instances where autobracketing is too limiting for your environment.

bracketing: step-by-step
Its very important that you have a sturdy tripod one thats capable of withstanding the weight of your camera, lens, and your tripod head. Solid legs with a in place, but to make sure it stays there when you change your settings, adjust your focus, or if a strong wind comes along. Even the slightest movement can alter your alignment, making it more difficult to exposure blend in post process. Place your camera on your tripod and adjust your focus properly. Please read my focusing workflow as this is a very important step to ensure that you have consistent images. Switch into aperture priority mode so that your camera will only change your shutter speed to alter have inconsistent depths of field, making it nearly impossible to exposure blend accurately. Finally, my least exposed image the blown highlights Follow the instructions in your camera manual to turn on your auto-bracketing. This is usually a simple process with a few clicks and adjustments. in the first two photos have been eliminated (except, of course, for the center of the sun) and has given a nice starburst effect to the sun as well. The middle photo is my longest exposure horrible for my foreground rocks (as seen in the top image) nicely. the exposure and NOT your aperture otherwise youll the sky, but it eliminated the blocked shadows from To the right, youll see the results of auto-bracketing for one particular beach scene. The top image is my base image one that has been metered on average for the entire frame (evaluative). Press your shutter button and take three consecutive images. I prefer to use a remote cable release so that Im not actually touching my camera, which can mirror which can also cause unwanted vibrations. When finished, review the histogram to make sure that you have the proper tonal range to work with meaning that it indicates you captured one image with no blown highlights and another with no blocked shadows. good grip are imperative to not only hold your camera lead to camera shake. Out of habit, I also lock my

manual bracketing
At times, you may find that your cameras auto-bracketing system is too limiting for the tonal range youre working with usually only +/- two full stops. If youre shooting a highcontrast scene with many highlights and dark shadows (such as a sunset or sunrise), four stops (two in each direction) will most likely not give you the full tonal range where all your shadows and highlights are recovered. When this happens, youll have to forgo the auto-bracketing and do it manually, which is quite simple to do. Check your histogram for any blown highlights if you still Auto-bracketing is a great benefit because it allows you to However, its only a time-saving feature auto-bracketing does nothing more than what you can do manually. Repeat the steps above regarding how to set up your tripod and your focus. Instead of turning on your auto-bracketing, just During this process, never change your aperture or ISO to meter your image (in aperture priority mode) and make a note ensure that you have smooth exposure blending. see some overexposed areas, keep increasing your shutter speed continue to decrease your shutter speed (overexposed) and check your histogram until you see that your unrecoverable shadows are fully exposed. capture three exposures without having to adjust your settings. until they disappear. Repeat this step for your shadows as well Switch into full manual mode (your instructions will tell you how to do this) and set your aperture and shutter speed to what it was when you metered. Take one image, then adjust your shutter speed two stops faster (underexposed) to capture another image. of your settings. The aperture you choose to use should always remain the same throughout your images instead, youll be adjusting your shutter speed for your different exposures.

final tips on bracketing

Always shoot in RAW format, preferably RAW + a low-res JPG for quick preview purposes. This will give you the most versatility in editing, and also an all-around higher quality image.

When capturing your photos, use a remote shutter release so that youre not actually touching the camera. This will help minimize any blurring or camera movement. Additionally, take special care when youre adjusting your settings as you may accidentally re-adjust your tripod/camera in between photos.

Always set your ISO to 100. Youre using a tripod (no risk for camera shake) so theres no need to sacrifice image quality for a faster shutter speed, unless theres a reason for it (like a moving object you want to capture). The clarity and quality of your image may suffer if you increase your ISO too much as explained here.

3. editing in photoshop

evaluating the brackets

Now I get to see the results of my careful preparation and in-camera execution - blending the exposures together in Adobe Photoshop software to make one complete image. This can be achieved in any program that uses layers. For this guide however, I use screenshots from Photoshop. Once youve captured three or more RAW images of the same scene, open all three files in the Photoshop RAW editor so you can see them at once. For the example here, I have stacked three brackets - the top image is my middle (base) exposure, the next image is my overexposed bracket (exposed for the ground), and finally my last image is my underexposed bracket (exposed to retain sky detail). In the top screenshot, Ive clicked on my base exposure which shows you what is captured using evaluative metering - and the reason why I exposure blend. The foreground is in dark shadow, the sky is washed out, and its an overall uninteresting and dull photograph that does not represent the stunning scene my eyes witnessed. By turning on the shadow clipping indicator (bottom image), you can see that the areas marked in blue are underexposedin other words, there is no data to work with as-is so I need to recover it through blending different exposures.

The same method can be used for the highlights. If I tick the highlight clipping indicator at the top right corner of my histogram, the overexposed areas are now shown in red. This is a typical result when shooting scenes with a high tonal range - a base image with blown highlights and boxed shadows that have gone beyond what your camera can capture in a single frame.

With RAW editing, you can adjust the exposure slider to recover these highlights and shadows, but as you previously learned this is not ideal in terms of quality - youll have more data to work with if you use an image that had its exposure adjusted in-camera than compared to the same adjustment made in RAW. Lets say you dont have a bracket to work with, and just have one RAW file to adjust (like the image

above). You would still need to go through the exposure blending workflow since your base image has both over and underexposed pixels. If I tried to expose this image more to recover the shadows, Id overexpose the sky further, and vice versa the only way to recover the full tonal range of this image is to blend different exposures together.

Before I go any further with my RAW adjustments, I want to ensure that Ive captured the full tonal range of my scene. By evaluating the outside brackets - my fastest and slowest exposures - I can determine if I need to perform any exposure adjustments in RAW to recover more detail.

your photography. Much interest has been recovered, and you can begin to visualize how your final image will look once these three exposures are blended together.

I should note that these brackets are the result of a panostitch, and stitching With the clipping indicators still turned on, Ill first look at my longest exposure (above), which is exposed to recover the shadows (blue). Except for a few rogue pixels - which I can easily clone out later in Photoshop - my shadows have been exposed enough to my liking. Im ignoring the blown out sky because that is not the focus of this particular bracket. I repeat the same process for my shortest exposure (fastest shutter speed), which is exposed to recover the sky detail. There are no blown highlights in the sky - indicated by red - so I have a solid tonal range to work with between these two brackets. When you compare this image to the base exposure on the previous page, its easy to see why exposure blending can greatly enhance If I did have large areas of lost data, I would adjust the affected bracket in RAW by sliding my exposure slider enough to bring back the details. Ideally, I would have done a manual bracket in the field as described earlier, but at times you still need to fine-tune your exposure in RAW. rarely produces an image with perfectly straight edges. The blue chunks you see along the borders of the image are not part of the original scene - rather just black areas filling the void where the edges arent flush. Ill end up warping and cropping these sections out in process (shown later). My main concern here are the under and overexposed areas within the scene itself, and I can tell that Ive recovered all the data I can and am ready to proceed.

preparing to blend
From here, you should perform any RAW editing you usually do, such as black and white conversion, white balance adjustments, and so on. Click the Select All icon to have your adjustments apply to all your images except for any adjustments you make to your exposure. This helps to cut down on your editing time and keeps all your images uniform. With all three images still selected, click Open to bring them into Photoshop. Youll notice that your photos are open in three separate windows - were going to combine them into the same file for blending, with each image on its own layer. Select your base exposure file and click CTRL + A so that you see the marching ants along the edge of your frame. Press CTRL + C to copy the image and switch over to your brightest photo (longest exposure). Create a new layer and press CTRL + V to paste the middle exposure on top. If you executed your bracketing properly and used a tripod, you should have no alignment problems. Repeat this step for your underexposed image (fastest shutter speed) so that you have all three photos in one file and on their own separate layers. Your top layer should be your darkest image and the bottom layer should be the brightest.

the blending workflow

For the majority of this tutorial, Im going to be adding layer masks to create one image using multiple exposures its much like HDR, only with a more realistic appearance and completely customizable. First, Ill add a layer mask to blend in my sky. Click the Add Layer Mask icon located at the bottom of your layers palette. selected, adjust your brush to a suitable size for this image, I want to combine the water and ground exposure of the middle layer with the sky of my top layer. Make sure your brush is set to 100% opacity, and with a 0% hardness level. What Im basically doing here is creating an imaginary and reversible hole in the top layer so that I can see the middle layer. Instead of applying it directly to the layer, Im using a mask so that I can adjust or delete this hole later on. Since I only want the ground and water to poke through, I just brush over that particular area (i.e. I dont brush over the sky). While the base layer has a brighter foreground than my top layer, its not bright enough to capture a solid tonal range. My goal is to blend in the bottom layer for the foreground, but I need to cut a hole in both my top and middle layer in order to show the bottom layer - remember, layers are stacked, so your can not see anything beneath a nontransparent layer unless its masked. Also note that you can always switch your brush color to white if you want to reverse Now select your brush tool by pressing B, and ensure that your foreground color is set to black, and background set to white. With your new layer mask the brush work you previously did and bring back the layer you are masking.

In the side-by-side comparison to the left, you can see how the base exposure is now visible on the top layer. Im starting to see an overall improvement in the tonal range, and how differently the image looks when blended with a longer exposure.

By pressing the ALT key and clicking on the layer mask in your layers palette, you can view the mask on your layer and see exactly where you brushed. When looking at the bottom image, you can see where the brush strokes were applied to create that hole, allowing the layer beneath to be visible. Since I used a 0% hardness, the edges of the painted areas are soft and transitional depending on your image, this can be beneficial or counterproductive, so you should adjust your hardness to accommodate your scene.

The brush opacity and hardness allows you to fully customize your layer mask to fit your content. A brush with 100% hardness will give you a very sharp (or hard) transition good for small areas or sharp horizons, but generally doesnt look realistic when youre trying to blend tones gradually. I usually start with 0% hardness for larger areas and readjust as necessary.

Another great tool you can adjust is your brush opacity or transparency. When set at 100%, youre basically cutting a hole in your layer, allowing the bottom layer to be seen completely. When you reduce the opacity lets say to 50% youre only allowing 50% of your bottom layer to be seen and 50% of your top layer to remain. This allows you to blend just the right amount between exposures for the perfect balance of tones.

My seascape is starting to improve, but the foreground is still far too underexposed for my liking. By selecting the base exposure, I add another layer mask and brush the foreground rocks and tree line with a 100% opacity brush set at 0% hardness (right).

In the end, I have three exposures in one to create a well-balanced scene - an underexposure for the sky, the base exposure for the middle ground water, and the overexposure for the foreground rocks and shoreline. Note the changes in the histogram each time I blend a layer.

Often youll find that using 100% opacity may cause too sharp of a transition on some areas and look rather unnatural. When I zoom in on the shoreline (bottom right), you can see that the water and rocks along the edge are a bit too dark and appear distracting.

If I use a 100% opacity brush, I have to choose between either the base exposure (too dark) and the overexposed bracket I used for the foreground (too bright). Rather than choose between the two, I can adjust my brush opacity level to a lower percentage. This will allow me to blend these two layers together gradually, displaying a bit of each and create a more harmonious tonal range with a smoother transition between layers. You can always reverse the masking you perform by inverting your foreground brush color. Press X to switch your foreground and background color - brush white to lessen your layer transparency, and black to increase it.

To enhance my image and make the transition smoother, I will mask the waters edge at a lower opacity level - in other words, I will paint over my mask with a black brush, but not at full strength. In Photoshop, you can highlight where you have masked by toggling the \ key, which will illuminate your brush strokes in red. The top two images show that the transition between layers is hard and abrupt (top right), which explains the unnatural look to my photo (top left). With a brush set at 30% opacity and set to black, I select my overexposure mask and begin to paint the areas I think are still too underexposed. If you look at the layer mask by pressing ALT and clicking on it in the layers palette, youll notice that this lower opacity brush will be varying shades of grey, which indicates that your brush is not at 100% strength. By brushing over the area several times with a low-opacity brush, I can layer my masking - gradually dissolving my base layer so that the longer exposure underneath starts to show for more accurate blending. When you compare the left-side images, you can see how natural and harmonious the layer blending appears now this change of appearance is mirrored when you compare the two masks on the right-hand side. The bottom mask is now gradual and soft, slowly fading away as you approach the horizon line. Using a low-opacity brush is not only useful for working along edges, but for blending as a whole. If my foreground had been exposed too much to my liking, I could have masked it with a lower opacity brush - say 80% - and retain a small bit of darkness from my base layer. You can apply this method to any part of your image, and between any pair of layers, for a truly customized blend.

brushwork and halos

When blending your layers with the brush tool, it can be a tedious job to work around structures and other prominent subjects that protrude between layers - such as trees and buildings. Try to avoid the temptation to rush through your work. After all, one of the top benefits of exposure blending over HDR software and using a GND filter is the ability to selectively blend exposures together. Now that I have generally blended our three exposures, its time to address the smaller areas - such as the rocks in the water, and the treeline in the upper left corner where it meets the sky. This requires a finer brush to mask these specific areas, and remove what we call halos - identified by the red arrows in the top image. Halos are the result of transitions that are too general - the brush I used was large and soft in order to quickly blend areas together, as seen in the mask in the bottom image. As a result, the blend wasnt customized to the distinct contours of my landscape, which produced this unnatural glow - a halo. Youll usually find halos where the sky exposure meets the ground exposure (as seen to the right), but they can appear anywhere that youve added a mask to. This requires you to return to the smaller details and edges of your image and work those for a flush and accurate blend. This is one example of where manual blending outshines HDR software and GND filters - you can take your brush and address halos individually and with 100% accuracy rather than rely on the global adjustments of software or the fixed blend from filters. By using layer masks, the blends are entirely reversible, and completely customizable.

To illustrate the importance of taking this extra step, Im going to blend my overexposed layer with my base layer to increase the exposure of this rock, which is isolated in the water and looks unnaturally dark for my landscape.

With my brush set to 100% opacity and 0% hardness, I brush over the rock as carefully as I can - zooming in only far enough to have my subject fill the screen. Despite my best efforts, I have a noticeable halo surrounding the edges (bottom left).

When I zoom in further to see this in greater detail (right) and press the \ key, you can see how my highlighted brush strokes spill over onto the water. With this closer view, I can use a smaller brush and remove this overflow, which will make my mask flush to the rocks edge. Since Im removing the layer mask of my overexposure, my foreground brush color is set to white and with 100% opacity. Since my brush size is small, the hardness level is still set at 0%.

When compared side-by-side, you can see how a wellplaced mask affects the blending. The top two images show a mask that was applied quickly, while the bottom row displays more accurate brushwork that hugs the contours of the rocks. At times youll find that even the most accurate brushwork can make your scene appear unnatural and distracting as it creates a hard transition between tonal ranges. Youll often see this along the horizon line where the sky meets ground. After you perform your detailed brushwork, create a history snapshot by clicking on the camera icon on your history palette. This will allow you to revert back to this particular point in your editing in case you wish to start over. With a very low opacity brush (around 10% to start), begin to brush around the area where the transition takes place. Use 0% hardness, and experiment with different brush sizes to make the transition appear smooth and gradual - in other words, there should be no evidence of brush strokes or sharp transition of tones. This will allow you to blend these two exposures for a more gradual appearance, much like I did for the shoreline previously.

advanced blending

When blending multiple exposures together in Photoshop using layer masks, youll eventually run into a situation where refining your mask with freehand brushwork becomes too difficult and time-consuming. This is especially true for intricate, jagged horizons that are interrupted by trees, rocks, and other elements such as the trees to the left. Brushing over the detailed contours of this tree line would require hours working on a pixel-by-pixel basis, which is simply unnecessary if you know how to refine a selection.

The following advanced blending workflow will show you how to combine the longer exposure (+2 EV) of the trees with the faster exposure (-2 EV) for the sky, which eliminates all the blocked shadows and blown highlights and recovers any lost data from this dynamic tonal range. Most importantly, this step-by-step guide will show you how to achieve this seamless result by creating a refined selection that automatically masks these two exposures together with great accuracy. By exploring some of the advanced features of Photoshop, you can create a customized layer mask that instinctively hugs every contour for a truly seamless HDR blend of exposures.

when to use refined masks

Before I get into the specific workflow, I want to highlight when and why you should forgo the freehand brushwork method and rely on Photoshop to select your masking. If you would rather just skip ahead to the step-bystep workflow, you can jump to Creating the Selection. You can always come back and read this section if you have any why and when questions as you go through each step. Partial blends are a fast and easy way to have A large aspect to the freehand brush method of blending exposures is what I call partial blends, where you use a low-opacity brush and paint over the areas you want to blend together gradually or rather, not 100% transparent. The result is a layer mask of different values, with a certain percentage of your top exposure transparent so that the exposure underneath can be seen to a certain degree with the goal being to find a happy medium between the two full control over how your exposures (layers) interact with one another by being able to manually adjust the opacity of the brush you use to blend and for most situations, this method works well. However, for jagged or serrate horizons (such as mountain ranges, tree lines, and other subjects that disrupt a flat horizon line), partial blends can present several side effects that detract from the success of your final image. for a natural appearance and a more complete tonal range. You can also use the partial blend method in order to create a gradientlike appearance of tones where you gradually transition from one exposure to the next much like the effect achieved with a GND filter. The example images from page 22 (also shown to the right) show a partial blend executed well.

When I do a partial blend of my example image below in an effort to gradually combine the -2 EV sky and the +2 EV tree line, youll notice that the tree line gradually gets darker as I approach the sky. This is where the freehand brush method falls short, and more refined blending is necessary. Since the trees are interwoven into the sky line, I have to brush over these tree tops in order to blend in the -2 EV sky, which causes the darkened tree line (top). My only other option here would be to do the reverse brush over the tree line to blend in the +2 EV layer, which causes some unnatural haloing around the trees (bottom). When attempting to blend two exposures together with a large, lowopacity brush instead of using a refined mask, you generally have to choose between these two side-effects if your horizon line is not flat either darkened tree tops to compensate for the -2 EV sky, or haloing to compensate for the +2 EV trees. You cant blend the exposure of the trees with the exposure for the sky seamlessly by using a partial blend, so this is why pixel-by-pixel brushwork is often turned to in order to blend in each tree branch individually incredibly time-consuming, but the only way to create a truly customized blend. This is where advanced blending techniques come in handy because rather than resorting to either a partial blend (shown on the right) or tedious brushwork, you can render a customized, contoured selection at full opacity. Also, partial blends with a large brush present other issues besides this gradient-like effect on tones. If your layers arent uniform in alignment, then ghosting will appear the partial visibility of an element that is present in one exposure, but not the other.

ghosting & sensor bloom

Even the most careful in-the-field execution of your brackets can still produce inconsistencies between each exposure. A common cause for ghosting is elements that move within your frame such as the fluctuating tide, swaying tree branches, and moving clouds.

When blending different exposures together, elements may have shifted, so partial blending is something you should avoid when alignment isnt uniform. By making a custom selection, you can forgo a partial blend and choose exactly what you want to mask, and at 100% opacity.

Panoramic stitches are another example of when images may not be uniform in alignment, and not due to bracketing errors in the field. Even the most sophisticated panostitching software with manual links can produce minor discrepancies between each exposure, and Adobes image alignment feature doesnt always help either. In these instances, partial blends would produce ghosting and thus, more specific blending at 100% opacity is necessary.

Sensor bloom occurs when light bleeds or overlaps onto elements in front of it, beyond where you would normally see the light, even with perfectlyaligned layers. This is especially visible in high-contrast scenes, such as the darkened pine trees against the sunset sky. This overexposed light spilling the trees are smaller, which is seen as ghosting for partial blends since the underexposed trees were rendered larger. When you compare the difference between -2 EV (exposed for the sky) and +2 EV (exposed for the trees), you can see how sensor bloom affects the tree line. The +2 EV trees were rendered considerably smaller in size due to the overexposed sky, and this difference will be apparent when the exposures are combined. Sensor bloom is a common occurrence with exposure blending especially

with trees since many scenes that require blending are taken during the golden hours with foreground subjects backlit by the sun. Even with a perfectly-contoured selection with 100% opacity masking, Ill still have an overlap to address as the trees in the -2 EV image are larger than they are for now I want you to keep in mind what sensor blooming is and why this overlap would cause ghosting for partial blends. The only way to rectify the blending issues with partial blends is to go in with a very small brush and work on an almost pixel-by-pixel basis, selecting each individual crevice to mask out. Admittedly, Ive done this in the past (with great success by the way), but it took several hours of detailed work. Rather, theres a more automated way to select your edges by working on specific channels and using your overlay brush.

around and in between the trees in my +2 EV image has given the illusion that in +2 EV. Ill discuss how to correct this later (which is rather simple), but

creating the selection

As a quick overview, Im going to create a high-contrast scene by selecting one channel from the layer I wish to mask. The strong contrast will serve as a way for Photoshop to detect a hard, contoured selection, which I can then use to add a customized mask. The typical approach for making a selection would be to use your magnetic lasso tool or select a specific color/tonal range. Unfortunately with these methods, too much guesswork is left to Photoshop which makes them highly ineffective for refining a selection destined for exposure blending. Often, youll have to re-visit the mask and contour it yourself with your brush tool, which defeats the purpose of automated selections. Once you have all your images aligned as individual layers in Photoshop (see Preparing to Blend), select your top layer (fastest exposure) and click the Channels tab to open up each individual channel for this particular layer. Here we can see each channel on their own layer, making it easy to identify which one to use for a selection. Since the goal here is to create the most contrast between what we want to mask and what we dont for easy edge detection, Im going to look for the channel that has the most contrast. For my image here and for most cases its the blue channel as the value disparity between tree and sky is higher here than the other channels.

Since Im going to be making adjustments onto my blue channel directly in order to increase the contrast, I dont want that to be visible on the image itself. I drag my blue channel down to the create new channel icon to copy the channel (or just right-click and select duplicate channel). Now that this channel is hidden underneath the others, the changes I make here wont be apparent when I switch back to the Layers tab later.

Now Im ready to increase the contrast between sky and tree, which will help Photoshop detect an accurate edge for selection. There are several ways to go about increasing the contrast here, but I like using the curves tool as it gives me direct control over my tones. I click Image > Adjustments > Curves to bring up the curves tool dialog box. Notice how the channel selected is Blue copy the duplicate channel I just added. What I want to do here is eliminate that grey from the sky and slightly darken the tree line in other words, push the sky pixels closer to pure white, and the tree pixels closer to pure black. I take my white point and slide it over to 107 on my x-axis (input), and slightly increase the input of my black point to 4. This compresses my tonal range quite a bit, telling Photoshop to reassign most of those grey pixels in my sky to pure white (255). Whatever method you use to increase the contrast, make sure not to compress the tonal range to the point where the edges of your future selection are redefined. If you increase the contrast too much, you can cause the black pixels to bleed onto white, or vice versa. Well be refining the selection later so a perfect contrast of black/white isnt necessary this step is to simply create a cleaner canvas for easier edge detection. When finished, click the load channel as selection icon to create your selection.

What this will do is create a custom selection based on the value of each pixel which we can then apply as a layer mask; pixels closer to pure white (255) will have a stronger selection, and pixels closer to pure black (0) will be selected less. In other words, pure white will be 100% selected, pure black will not be selected at all, and the opacity of each selection for the varying shades of grey in between these two points will depend on where they fall on the value scale. This will make more sense visually, so Ill apply the selection to a layer mask so we can see the result (right). After the selection has been made, switch back to the layers palette and make sure your top layer (or whichever layer you want to apply your mask to) is active. Click the add layer mask icon to apply the selection as a mask, and ALT+click the actual mask to see it on your image. Note: I have hidden my base layer here (+/-0 EV) in order to access the longer exposure underneath (+2 EV) since that is the image I want for my tree line. Im only incorporating the middle ground from this base exposure (detailed here) so once Ive finished my masking here, Ill go back and activate this layer and paint in the middle ground water using the freehand brushwork method described earlier. Now we can see the result of this entire process a completely customized and contoured layer mask for incredibly accurate blending.

refining the mask

Im going to zoom out a bit so you can see the entire frame, and also see those shades of grey where the partial selections were made. When blending exposures in this manner, grey translates to a partial blend of exposures which is something I dont want here. It means that Ive only partially blended my layers, which can cause ghosting and an overall flattening of tones. The goal here is a pure white-and-black mask that is contoured to the unique horizon line. If I select the layer to see how this mask interacts with the blending of exposures, you can see how flat the tones are towards the center of my image, which is where the tones closest to middle grey are on my mask.

While the general outline of the mask has been established, I still need to refine it by reassigning all those grey tones on the mask to either pure white or pure black. At this point, all the hard work has been done the borders of the mask have been outlined. Now I just need to fill those areas in.

Im going to go back and re-select my mask by ALT+clicking it so I can see it on my photo. What Im going to do here is quickly select most of the pixels I want to be pure black basically, everything but the sky and fill it with 100% black. Afterwards, Ill refine the edges with my brush tool.

By selecting my lasso tool (not magnetic) and making sure my mask is active instead of my layer, I trace around the area where I want everything to be pure black (fully masked). Its more important to only select the pixels you absolutely want to mask as opposed to getting as close to the edge as possible. Well be refining the edge later (which is an easy process), so dont worry about leaving some breathing room.

Once selected, make sure your layer mask is still active and click Edit > Fill. Select black as your fill color with 100% opacity, and click OK. Youll end up with a mask similar to the result below almost perfect, but with a slight border of various grey tones to refine.

the overlay brush

As you can see, this is filled in quite nicely except for the top of the rock down in the corner. Its various shades of grey, which translates to flatter tones and possible ghosting in my image due to partial blending. What I want to do is fill in this area with pure black. In other words, everything south of the outline should be filled with black, and everything north should be white all those grey values will be pushed to either pure black or pure white. Now its just a matter of brushing over your canvas and pushing pixels towards their extremes either pure white or pure black. A black overlay brush will push grey pixels to black, and a white overlay brush will push those pixels towards white. For this particular image, I paint over the sky with a white overlay brush to make sure that all those pixels are 100% white (not The easiest way to achieve this is by using the overlay brush. What this will do is take any pixel that is a higher value than middle grey and lighten (screen) it towards pure white, and inversely, it will reassign any pixel lower than middle grey and darken (multiply) it towards to pure black. Now you can see why it was important to create contrast in our channel not just to get a defined edge for detection, but to also push those grey pixels that were on the fence one way or the other, which will make the overlay brush all the more effective. I like to make several passes over the area, switching back and forth from black to white as I brush to keep things on an even keel. Keep in mind though that the more passes you make of the same color (black or white), the more chance it will bleed onto the other. Even pixels that are near 100% white will be affected by a black overlay brush if those pixels are on the border and vice versa and this change becomes more dramatic the stronger your opacity is. I switch over to my brush tool and make sure my foreground is set to black, and background set to white. On the brush toolbar, change your Mode to Overlay from the drop-down menu and change your opacity to 50%. This is where I typically start with in terms of brush strength, but feel free to This can alter the size and contours of your newly-customized mask, so make sure to keep an eye on your brush work and take note of any changes in size. This is why I like to alternate back and forth from black to white as it helps to make sure one color doesnt dominate over the other. masked at all), and then focus in on the tree line to refine the mask selection (image on next page). experiment with the opacity here to what suits your specific needs.

After making several passes with an alternating black and white overlay brush, my mask is looking much cleaner (top image).

Now I can see the refined layer mask that Ive been working towards completely customized to the unique horizon line of my image, and something that would take many hours to create by a freehand brush.

Lets take a look at the results to see how this mask interacts with the layer exposed for the tree line (bottom image).

While my mask is successful, this blend is not. Here you can see a common issue with this method and exposure blending in general inconsistent layers. However, since we have a custom layer mask already in place, this sensor bloom quite simple to fix.

sensor bloom & exposure blending

As mentioned earlier in this tutorial, sensor bloom occurs when the physical area of an object is reduced in apparent size due to bright light sources pouring in from behind. This transition between light and dark is overpowering, and the overexposed light of the sky in my bottom layer (+2 EV) is bleeding over onto the trees making them appear smaller. The difference in size between the image exposed for the sky (-2 EV, where I based my mask on) and the image exposed for the trees (+2 EV) is quite different. Sensor bloom is why you see the glowing edge of light around the trees the mask is larger than the +2 EV trees, so its spilling over onto the overexposed sky of this layer. This can be seen when I highlight the layer mask. The trees of +2 EV, which has all blocked shadows in the foreground recovered, are masked in with a selection based on the -2 EV trees, which is slightly larger. Another issue we see here is simple inconsistencies between panoramic stitches those ghosting areas identified earlier. The software I used for panostitching rendered the -2 EV stitch slightly different than the +2 EV stitch, and this disparity affects how the mask interacts with these layers. This ghosting can happen for various reasons, but usually affects only a small area of your frame.

To rectify both the ghosting and sensor bloom, Im going to duplicate the ground layer underneath my mask (+2 EV) and with my clone tool, fill in to cover the white areas from sensor bloom. Right now, the selection I created for the sky layer mask (-2 EV) is too big when placed over the ground layer exposed for the trees. However, some select clone stamping will correct this unsightly distraction.

Making sure that the duplicate ground layer is on top of the original and active, I select my clone stamp tool and choose a stamp source below the sensor bloom by ALT + clicking on the trees. I then brush over the tree line edges with a soft brush (0% hardness) and at 100% opacity, with a size large enough to cover the areas I want to correct. Both the sourcing and stamping are performed on the same layer, the +2 EV ground layer I just duplicated.

When you move about your frame, you may need to reselect new sources as you go along to avoid repeating any patterns for the image above, notice how I selected a new source area to correspond with the new stamping area. Since Im working with pine trees, the pattern is very chaotic and random and the mask is serrate, so it makes for easy stamping with no noticeable repeating patterns or otherwise unnatural blending. However, for other scenes, you may need to be more conscious on where you source your stamping and how much you perform

before selecting a new source. Its also important to try and be conscious of your clone sources and where you stamp for example, notice how I sourced a tree trunk and stamped it where the tree trunk had been overwhelmed by sensor bloom as opposed to filling that area in with random pine needles.

When finished, my sensor bloom and other inconsistencies between the layers have been removed for a seamless blend.

Another way to relate this process to something more familiar is to think of

ground layer where I did my stamping, the appearance is rather sloppy and

filling in the edges around a stencil where the sky layer mask is the stencil, unrefined (below). However, when the stencil is put back on (previous page), and the trees are what fills it. Before the clone stamping, the stencil was too big and only partly filled in, so the trees needed to be enlarged to occupy those negative spaces (the sensor bloom). those sloppy edges dont matter much since you only see what the mask (stencil) allows you to. The final result is a perfectly customized and highly intricate blend of exposures, where the -2 EV sky is 100% visible around every contour and through every gap along the horizon line. When you take the stencil off (the layer mask) and look at the duplicate

final adjustments to the blend

When blending two different exposures together in this manner, you can sometimes encounter an unnatural transition where the foreground looks washed out against the background. Since the mask has already been drawn, and any blending discrepancies between each exposure corrected, I can now adjust the tones of +2 EV to match the sky in a more natural way.

Making sure to reactivate my -2 EV layer (sky) that I just hid to show the stamped duplicate layer, I add a curves adjustment directly on top of the duplicate and underneath mid (+/-0 EV) and shift the middle tones down closer to pure black. The placement of the curves layer here is important so that it only affects my +2 EV image. Since Im working on a curves adjustment layer, I can mask out areas of this change where it is too drastic, allowing for further refinement.

The best approach to this would be to actually take an exposure at +1 EV (faster) rather than +2 EV so that the curve adjustment step can be skipped, but that can present its own unique set of issues. With this particular image, the darker areas to the left of the frame had blocked shadows at EV+1, so I instead chose to use +2 EV and applied the curves adjustment layer to reduce the tonal value closer to the horizon line. I then masked out any areas that became too underexposed such as the darker trees towards the left of my frame. In my eBook The Art of Processing, I discuss this method in further detail and explain and tonal adjustments rather than settling for global changes.

this blend complete. At times, the edges of your masking can be rather harsh and unnatural, making the transition between exposures appear pixelated. By refining the mask edge, you can soften this transition for a more pleasing appearance. Before I edit my mask, I want to duplicate the entire layer and hide it in case I need to refer back to it later. The Refine Mask tool can directly manipulate the pixels of your mask which means any changes to those delicate adjustments performed to create this mask will be permanent. By duplicating this layer necessary. Once Ive made my duplicate, I go back to my top

how to use layer masks to selectively apply your color and the mask, I have the original to revert back to if

With this in mind, I always check my histogram in the layer and right-click on the mask, which brings up field to make sure that I have recovered all lost data in both my highlights and shadows. In other words, Id rather collect too much data and adjust it in post as opposed to not enough and be left without a +2 EV frame and blended in the underexposed trees of +2 EV later, but that seemed like an unnecessary extra step since all the data is there in +2 EV. I have one more step to perform before I can call a menu. I select Refine Mask to open up several powerful options most notably the Adjust Edge section. Since my goal is to soften the edge of my mask for smoother transition, I very slightly increase difference for this image. The amount of feathering you perform will depend on the size of your canvas since its a pixel-dependent adjustment, but a little goes a long way to smooth out those jagged edges.

choice. In theory, I could have captured both an +1 and the Feather slider to .6 px, which makes quite a

Its important to note that there are several other fantastic options here for refining the mask most notably, the Shift Edge feature will allows you to increase or decrease the size of your mask edge. The only adjustment I need to perform to this mask is feathering the edge, but I want to make sure that you dont overlook the Refine Mask feature as it has several versatile tools that you should explore for future reference. When I compare the end result of this workflow with those of the freehand brush method shown earlier, you can see why a refined selection for my mask was preferable to simply painting with a low-opacity brush for a partial blend. While the refined mask here works much better for the unique challenges this horizon line presents, that is not to say that freehand brushwork is an inferior method to use its just not suited well for this particular image. For example, if this was a bracketed scene of a seascape with a flat horizon line, partial blends with a low-opacity brush would be my method of choice as it would create a gradient-like blending of tones as opposed to the harsh, abrupt transition that comes with a refined mask like this. In short, the method you use will depend entirely on the contents of your photograph one is not universally more effective than the other.

After my advanced brushwork along the sky and tree line, my layer blending is now complete. When you compare the final result with the base exposure - the image one would normally capture - you can see a huge difference in the tonal range and detail. This recovery of data is also reflected in the histograms - notice how I now have a nice arc distribution of tones. In contrast, the U shape of my base exposure indicates that I have a high amount of boxed shadows, blown highlights, and very little mid tones to work with. While there is no global definition of a good histogram, for this particular scene it has been improved greatly. The amount of blending you perform will depend entirely on your scene, so there is no typical workflow to follow. Your blending may be simpler or much more involved than this example, but thats the beauty of exposure blending. Its entirely customizable to compliment your photograph rather than trying to force your photograph to compliment the confines of automated software. When blending exposures, there are oftentimes situations where gradual, soft blends are preferred to make the transition between layers more natural for complex scenes - for example, the water middle ground in the top image would benefit from a softer blend as the transition is too abrupt. While you can soft-blend exposures together using a low opacity brush, like explained on page 21, theres a more advanced way to blend that will allow you make custom selections like this for scenes with complicated or dramatic tonal shifts. For the remainder of this eBook, Im going to introduce luminosity masks into the workflow, which will give you the highest level of control over your blends and transform the way you process your scene.

introduction to luminosity masks

Luminosity masks are a powerful editing tool for landscape photographers as the desire to capture dynamic tonal ranges has become increasingly popular, and this often requires blending different exposures together in Photoshop in order to recover any lost detail. In the previous section on Tony Kuyper first wrote about luminosity masks in level rather than whether or not they fall before or after 50% grey on the value scale. black and white mask produces a hard transition; when I showed you how to refine a mask previously, I created a strong contrast directly on the channel so the selection was well-defined. I then further

2006 as a way to make tone-based, local adjustments refined the mask so the trees from the +2 EV layer to one exposure in Photoshop. However, these were completely, 100% visible with the sky from -2 EV. In other words, all grey tones on the mask were eliminated. However, this harsh transition may not always appear natural, and can create an unpleasant result when dealing with complicated, interwoven transitions between light and shadow for example, trees backlit by the sun with light rays pouring in Luminosity masks are created by loading a selection from behind. For situations like this, you can create a soft, gradual transition between your exposures

advanced blending, I explained how to create refined masks can also be used to blend exposures together. selections for your layer mask to assist. That method Luminosity masks are simply a unique and versatile involves loading a custom selection based on pixels that were either lighter or darker than middle grey onto a layer mask, and then refining that selection to the contours of your landscape. approach to creating a selection based on the tones of your image and that selection can be used to mask layers together in the digital darkroom.

An issue with this process is that it can be rather rudimentary for more complex images that have

that was created on a channel much like I did in

the previous section. The difference, however, is that by selecting more specific groups of tones that are automatically feathered.

difficult transitions between exposures. To take your a luminosity mask does not simply create a black mask refinement a step further, you can select more specific groups of tones based on their luminosity and white mask, but one based on luminance for gradual, natural transitions between exposures. A

creating an alpha channel

To begin, I want to first blend the sky of -2 EV with the foreground of +2 EV. This is basically the same thing I did in the last tutorial, but instead Ill go through the luminosity mask creation so you can easier understand how this works.

Select your least exposed layer (-2 EV) and click on the Channels tab. Much like in the previous tutorial, select the channel that provides the most contrast overall and load it as a selection by clicking on the selection icon at the bottom of your palette (below) or simply CTRL/CMD + Click the thumbnail (CTRL for PCs, CMD for Macs). This will bring up the marching ants around pixels which are brighter than middle grey, and the strength (opacity) of that selection depends on how bright the pixels are.

Now that the selection is made, were going to save this selection To create your alpha channel, make sure your selection is so we can refer back to later. The easiest way to do this is to create an alpha channel its a duplicate of the channel youre basing the selection off of (in this case, the blue channel) with the selection applied to it. Alpha channels are simply a way for you to save your tonal selections to use later since you can always return to your Channels palette and select an alpha channel to activate the selection. Dont worry, alpha channels wont affect how your image appears since theyre hidden. still active (marching ants are still visible) and click the Save selection as channel icon at the bottom of your channels palette. This will automatically create a new alpha channel based on your selection. Rename this layer Highlights for easy reference as this is the channel youll base your future highlight selections off of.

Next, I create the Shadows alpha channel by duplicating the Highlights channel I just created and inverting it by pressing CTRL/CMD + I make sure that before you invert, no selections are active by pressing CTRL/CMD + D to deselect everything. Otherwise, inverting will only affect the selection and not the image as a whole. For easy reference, rename this alpha channel Shadows. Since the load channel as selection feature only selects pixels which are higher than 50% grey on the value scale (closer to pure white), inverting the alpha channel means that the pixels which are brighter than middle grey are actually your shadows.

highlight vs. shadow selections

What Ive done is split the two tonal ranges the pixels which are brighter than middle grey and the pixels that are darker into two main selection pools: Highlights and Shadows. These two selection groups, which are in the form of alpha channels, will be the source of all your future refined selections (at least for this exposure). This is what luminosity masks are based on making a selection on a group of tones either highlights or shadows in order to blend them with another layer. Since this method creates a feathered selection, the transition from one layer to another is almost undetectable for a truly natural blend with minimal posterization. Before I begin to create more refined alpha channels, I should note that partial blending should only be used when each layer (exposure) by narrowing the parameters which define highlights or shadows. For example, if I only wanted my very brightest pixels selected in order to blend any blown highlights with a lesserexposed layer, I would select my Highlights alpha channel and instruct it to only select pixels which are completely white (255 on the value scale). This adequate enough if you have no other option) you wouldnt have to worry about any misalignment since youre working with the same image, so theres no movement between frames. If you bracketed off a scene and had no movement between frames, youll be fine as well. The big issue with ghosting comes when you are

is what Ill be discussing next how to take either blending panoramics together even the most of these two alpha channels and narrow your tonal selection to base your luminosity mask on later. sophisticated software and seamless blend can still produce inconsistencies between each layer. So before proceeding, you should make sure that your layers are uniform in alignment (by first selecting all your layers and pressing Edit > AutoAlign Layers) if they are still not aligned, make sure you are comfortable with reversing any

This is where luminosity masks differ greatly from you are blending together is uniform in alignment potential ghosting manually before going through simply creating a black and white mask you can get very specific with your tonal selections otherwise, ghosting will be an issue. If youre working with only one RAW file (not ideal, but this workflow.

refining luminosity selections

The overall goal here is to create a luminosity mask to combine the sky of EV -2 (sky) with the foreground of EV +2 (ground). This is what I want to focus on now, so Im going to deactivate my middle exposure (EV +/-0) and hide the layer so that there is nothing between the sky and ground layers (top right). Ill be bringing this layer back in the next step in order to gradually blend in the water since the middle layer has the best exposure for it.

Since the layer we are selecting is quite underexposed (sky), there arent going to be any highlights for our selection. This is confirmed when we look at the levels histogram for this particular exposure (bottom right). Almost all of the tones are to the left, which means the Highlights alpha channel which only allows pixels brighter than middle grey to be selected is useless. Instead, what Ill do is base my selection on the Shadows alpha channel which has a vast selection pool to choose from and then invert my mask. If youre lost already, dont worry visuals help, so Ill walk you through this tutorial step-by-step.

To begin, Ill select the Shadows alpha channel by clicking CMD + clicking the thumbnail again.

Photoshop to take this selection pool and narrow it down

on the thumbnail, and then activate the selection by CTRL/ to only include the darker shadows of this channel. You can compare this process to wood carving or clay By looking at the selection here, you can see that while all of the shadows are selected, theres still quite a bit of sky detail that I dont want. This is where the true power of the luminosity mask comes in, the ability to condense and refine a selection based on the value of each pixel. In overlapped into the sky. With a luminosity mask, I can tell sculpting I have the general outline of my figure, but need to whittle away some of the rougher selections in order to refine and mold it into what I want. Its been a long explanation so far, but quite worth it when you see the power of this process and why many photographers exposure blending.

other words, my selection is too general right now and has use luminosity masks for their photography beyond

What Im going to do here is take this alpha channel and intersect the selection with itself, which will tell Photoshop to eliminate those pixels on the very edge of the selection the lighter shadows and only select darker tones: in other words, reshape and refine. To do this, press CTRL/CMD + ALT + SHIFT all at once, and click on the thumbnail for the Shadows alpha channel.

Here you can see the difference only one intersection made see how the selection now hugs the contours of the tree line, and the sky is (almost) completely deselected?

The next step would be to save this selection to use later by pressing the save selection as channel icon and renaming the channel for easier future reference. I like to simply add a roman numeral when I intersect channels, but feel free to use your own labeling methods.

theres one very important difference with luminosity masks which isnt apparent by simply looking at the selection here the selection is self-feathering, which means that the transition from one exposure to another will be very soft and gradual. The marching ants you see are simply pixels that are selected with more than 50% opacity,

Looking at the refinement of this selection, youll notice how similar it appears to the one I created in the previous section on advanced blending, where I added contrast to the channel directly in order to refine my mask. However,

but pixels which are selected with less than 50% opacity will not be outlined by the marching ants. So its possible to have no marching ants on your alpha channel and still have a selection.

I need to refine this selection a bit more in order to get the results I want, which is everything but the sky. I intersect the selection once again, making sure that my Shadows II alpha channel is active and the selection is loaded. CTRL/CMD + ALT + SHIFT while clicking on the layer thumbnail will again further refine it to select even darker shadows. Im going to stop intersecting here since the next intersection starts to cut into the tree line a bit too much. You can do this process as many times

as you need to, and can actually create your own set of Photoshop actions to do this process for you automatically. You can do the same exact process for your Highlights, gradually narrowing your selections until only your very brightest areas are chosen a good selection method for working on any blown highlights. For this particular exposure, the scene is quite underexposed so it made more sense to base my selections off of the Shadows alpha channel.

However, if I was working with EV +2 or any other overexposed layer, I would have created luminosity masks based on the Highlights alpha channel and selected the overexposed sky for my masking. So the channel you choose to work with for blending either Highlights or Shadows will depend on the exposure of the image you are basing it off of, and also your intent (what areas you want to select for masking later).

My channel work is done; the selections have been created for blending. However, this is only half the process I need to transfer these selections over to my layer and apply them as a mask to blend the exposures together. This process is rather simple, and there are several ways to apply your selection and create the mask.

creating the luminosity mask

Now that the selections have been made and saved as alpha channels, its time to turn them into a luminosity mask and blend the exposures together for an HDR photo. Turning a selection into a mask is quite simple, and Ill go over two different ways to approach this.

First make sure that your selection is active, and is based on the correct alpha channel for this image, its the Shadows III channel. You can activate this by first clicking on the channel thumbnail to highlight it, and then CTRL/CMD + Click on the thumbnail again to bring up the marching ants. Once the correct selection is active, switch back to your layers palette and select the layer you wish to apply the mask to. Apply a new mask to your layer, and the selection will transfer over.

Alpha channels are based on selections of pixels that have higher concentrations exact opposite of what I want it to do the sky is predominantly black and the of white the closer a pixels value is to 100% white, the higher the opacity is for that selection. When you apply an alpha channel selection to your mask, other words, your channel looks exactly like what your mask is going to be. For this particular image, since the mask was inverted for shadows, its doing the foreground white, which means that the sky is actually getting masked out and the foreground is still visible. This is a simple though as all I have to do is invert hold down the ALT key when I apply the layer mask to instantly invert it.

youre transferring over the tonal ranges of that channel directly to the mask. In my mask by pressing CTRL/CMD + I and since Im aware of this beforehand, Ill

This blend is starting to come together, but for this particular set of exposures a gradual transition does not work well especially for the tree line. Theres also some sensor bloom and ghosting issues to address. Referring back to the

previous advanced blending workflow, I refine my mask to eliminate all the grey tones by filling the foreground with black and sky line with white first generally with the lasso tool, and then more specifically with the overlay brush.

After refining the edge of my selection, the result is a fully contoured mask.

As far as masking goes, this is exactly what I want the +2 EV tree line and foreground blended seamlessly with the -2 EV sky. However, this hard transition does not look natural for my middle ground and horizon line. The water you see in the bottom right image is from the +2 EV layer, which is quite overexposed when compared to the -2 EV sky, so this dramatic jump of 4 stops is too harsh.

Another option would be to blend in the water from -2 EV, but this appears to be just as unnatural (inset). A gradual blend is needed to transition softly from the -2 EV sky to the +2 EV foreground by introducing a third exposure the base image (+/-0 EV) which I hid at the beginning of this eBook.

transitions with luminosity masks

To begin, Ill unhide my base exposure and switch to the Channels palette. Here youll notice something new all the alpha channels I created based on -2 EV are still accessible. This is very useful since the alpha channel selections you create can be applied as a luminosity mask to any layer (exposure).

For this image, however, I want to create a new alpha channel based on my middle exposure as that has the greatest contrast between the water and the surrounding land my goal here is to create a selection around the water and isolate it, and then gradually blend in the water exposure of +/-0 EV with the +2 EV exposure to softly transition between these two extreme tonal groups.

Looking through my RGB channels, blue provides the greatest amount of contrast so I create an alpha channel just like I did before load the selection, and then save that selection as a channel (Highlights I mid below).

Since my goal is to just select the water for blending, I intersect this selection once to further target the brighter highlights: CTRL/CMD + ALT + SHIFT and click on the alpha channel thumbnail, and then save the selection as another channel (Highlights II mid).

At this point I would normally just add a layer mask and refine as necessary, like I did previously. However, for gradual transitions, you may want to apply your luminosity mask in a different manner than simply loading it directly onto a layer mask. I find it more successful to transfer over just the selection made with your alpha channel, and create your luminosity mask by manually blending it in with the brush tool at a low opacity level. Its a lot like what I did earlier in the eBook on manual blending, but now I have the confines of a feathered selection that I can simply fill in in other words, the selection I created acts as a mold that I can then paint my luminosity mask into, and at varying transparency levels. To do this, make sure your alpha channel selection is not active (no marching ants) by pressing CTRL/CMD + D to deselect. Then switch over to your layers palette, select the correct layer and add a mask. The color of your mask is an important consideration here depending on what you want to accomplish remember, white retains and black removes your layer. Since my alpha channel selection is based on what I want to keep the water the mask will have to be black as I can only paint within the confines of that selection. To add a black mask, I hold down the ALT key while pressing the add layer mask icon.

Now that the mask has been applied, switch back over to your Channels palette and load the selection you just created. Once the selection is active again, simply return to your layers palette, select your mask, and begin to paint your luminance selection onto the mask with a white brush.

I recommend you begin by using a very low opacity brush to gradually apply your luminosity mask selection 10% opacity at most. This will help to ensure that your brushstrokes are not visible, which can lead to banding. Even if your brushwork does not appear to be producing any pixelation right now, further color adjustments can emphasize banding and posterization, so its best to create a solid foundation rather than have to go back and re-apply your mask later on.

Once I finish gradually applying my mask with a low-opacity brush, my final blended image and mask look like the images to the right.

Notice how the rocks have already been cut out since they were not part of the original selection their luminance was too dark, and fell outside of the selection parameters. This is a wonderful time-saver since I do not have to go back and manually mask out the rocks which decorate the water.

One of the greatest benefits of luminosity masks is that you have created a defined selection based on luminance. When painting in the mask, your brush strokes wont affect pixels which are not selected since the boundaries have already been defined. Without the luminosity mask, haloing becomes an issue since the brush tool will affect wherever you paint. Below is an example of mask painting without a defined selection, and the resulting halo effect. Another benefit to using luminosity masks for exposure blending is that it gives you a solid foundation to apply your color processing onto, which dictates not only the quality of your final image, but also the number of avenues you can pursue without causing damage. If you read my article on editing vs. processing, you know that I separate editing from processing in the digital darkroom and the focus of my editing is to cultivate the best possible canvas to process with. Thanks to the meticulous blending of exposures from this workflow, I was able to apply many different color and tonal techniques without any detrimental effects, allowing me to achieve the final image at the end of this eBook. At this point, you can remove the selection and do any necessary touchups to your luminosity mask with your brush tool. I decided to blend in a bit of the EV -2 water near the horizon with a low-opacity brush in order to mirror the sky detail more closely. Since this image was a panoramic stitch, some clone stamping and cropping will be necessary to not only remove the tripod legs, but also the negative spaces along the edges of my frame, which I will go over in the next section.

finishing touches
Now that my blending is finished, I can adjust the crop and realign my composition - this is especially important when Im working with a panostitch. However, since I added several masks and can not adjust more than one layer at a time, I need to merge them together so that I am working with one uniform layer.

A downside to merging is that my masking and brushwork will become permanent. Another way to think of merging layers is that youre essentially gluing it all together. The layers will flatten into one, and I wont have the ability to alter them later if needed.

I can work around this limitation by creating a Smart Object, which will abstractly combine my layers so I can make universal adjustments to the image as I see it on my screen. Rather than permanently merging my layers, Photoshop will create a separate file with my layers and masks still intact, essentially creating a source file that remains unaltered.

To create a Smart Object, highlight all your layers and click Layer > Smart Object > Convert to Smart Object. Youll notice that you now have one layer in your layers palette. To see your blended layers again and perform any further edits to the individual exposures, double-click on your new Smart Object layer.

Now I can warp my image to adjust my horizon line and also stretch out those negative spaces (top right). The changes you apply to your Smart Object will not become permanent to the layers themselves. The final edit I want to perform before I begin to process is to use my clone tool to remove the tripod legs and any ghosting from partial blends. The clone tool is rather straightforward and there are many video tutorials available which can show you how to clone out unwanted areas. However, I need to prepare my image before I begin to clone since you can not change the pixels of a Smart Object. At this point, my image needs to be merged and rasterized before I can clone to remove unwanted elements or to remove ghosting. Im comfortable enough with merging the layers together, yet I dont want to lose all the masking work Ive done by permanently gluing it all. To compromise, Im going to copy the Smart Object and hide it in the background so I can access it later if I need to. Copying layers is a method I use often when I want to apply permanent changes by merging, but wish to have a point to revert to if Im not happy with the result. First, Ill duplicate the Smart Object - this way Ill have a layer copy to revert back to. With the duplicate layer selected, click on Layer > Rasterize > Smart Object to rasterize the exposure blend (bottom right). On this layer, I can now clone out the areas I wish to remove before I begin my color processing.

The top left image is the final result of my editing. When I process a photograph in Photoshop, I have two very different workflows that I go through - editing and creating. My editing techniques are corrective in nature - blending exposures, adjusting the crop and composition, and removing any impurities that detract from my image. In short, I am preparing my canvas by creating the best possible environment. This will allow me much freedom for the creative stage, specifically color and tone processing. The creative stage is entirely dependent on my editing stage - I can not enhance details and data that arent already present, so the quality of my creative processes are dictated by the editing techniques I perform first. To continue the learning process seamlessly, I have written a color processing eBook that will detail how I went from the top image to the bottom in a step-by-step fashion. I also address the philosophy of my color processing and how I develop my workflows, which can serve as a template for creating your own color and tone processes. If you would like to learn more about The Art of Color Processing, click here. By detailing my blending workflow, it is my hope that I have provided you with the tools and knowledge to overcome the limitations of your camera and be able to create the photograph you wish to express.

final thoughts
As you can tell, this technique has a wide variety of uses and not just for landscapes or golden hour scenes. What if youre shooting a portrait in RAW and have some unsightly blown highlights in the background? When you drop into shadow youll need to blend two different exposures in order to keep your subject properly exposed and also eliminate those distracting highlights. The exposure blending workflow is also used If youre working with a single RAW file, you can save different exposure settings and blend them together using the above workflow. For this instance, you would open your image in Photoshop after RAW editing exposed for the subject but with your blown highlights and/ or blocked shadows. Afterward, you can reopen that same RAW file, adjust the exposure to recover the lost data, and open the image(s) in Photoshop and blend together. I use this often when Im dealing with minor exposure differences - ones that did not call for the need to bracket my entire image. In Remember, if auto-bracketing isnt a viable option, you can get a better recovery of detail in RAW if you shoot to the right - referring to a slightly overexposed image according to your histogram as opposed to underexposing it. Youll find a higher-quality result in recovering blown highlights than compared to increasing the exposure of blocked shadows. for several other editing processes other than expanding the tonal range - focus blending being a notable example. The process of blending layers has limitless applications and can benefit any photography subject. the photo here, my entire frame was exposed correctly, except for the slightly overexposed green foliage to the right. Instead of autobracketing for this, I knew I could just blend the RAW file by dropping my exposure down recovery as small as this, there isnt much need to go through the entire bracketing process as the loss of data is not noticeable. your exposure to correct this, your subject is cast and combining it with the original image. For a

about christopher
Through my work, I like to show a vantage point that is rarely seen in reality; a show of beauty, emotion, and serenity. There are countless mesmerizing scenes among us that are often hidden from society my goal is to expose them to the world so that I may share the wonders I have seen. After college, I returned to the coast of Maine to pursue my love of landscape photography and have made it my career. Maine is one of the few states that is relatively untouched by human interference, which makes it the perfect landscape. My work changes like the seasons of New England, which always present me with surreal opportunities to create something unique. I encourage you to visit my website for further learning, as I have written several articles on the basics of photography and beyond - as well as to see my latest work. Prints of my work are available for purchase at my online store. You can subscribe to my newsletter to receive updates on when new editions of my eBooks are available - free to download to those who have already purchased a previous version. By signing up, youll also be entering my print giveaway contest. On the first day of every season, I randomly pick one subscriber to win a free medium-sized print of their choice or my entire eBook collection. More details on the contest can be found here.

other ebooks
The disparity between learning a photographic technique and knowing how to apply it creatively to your environment is a source of much frustration for landscape photographers. This portfolio study can show you how to overcome this roadblock, and unleash your inner creativity. With The Golden Hour Portfolio: A Monograph on the Light of With The Portfolio of Bokeh, I can help to bridge the gap between your vision and your creation by explaining how I approached each of my bokeh images. By reading about my camera workflow, you can learn how to critically analyze a scene and decide on the best method to use. In this eBook, you will find 22 full page examples of my strongest bokeh images in high-resolution color. Each photo is paired with a full page spread that contains a wealth of information on how I created each image. I discuss many aspects of my creative process some examples include how I find inspiration, choosing a strong focal point, and the importance of applying photography principles in your composition (such as contrast and symmetry). Click here to learn more about The Portfolio of Bokeh.

Sunrises and Sunsets I can help to bridge the gap between your
vision and your creation by explaining how I approached each of my golden hour images and more importantly, why. By reading about my camera workflow, you can learn how to critically analyze a scene and decide on the best method to use that compliments your creative style. Click here to learn more about The Golden Hour Portfolio.

The Art of Bokeh: A Guide to Using Shallow Depths in Landscape Photography was written to inspire photographers to think
beyond the confines of a deep depth of field. Its focused on guiding landscape photographers of all levels to widen their aperture and see the environment as light and shapes, and to create abstract, ethereal images that have a deeper meaning and interpretation. By using a shallow depth of field and thin slices of focus, you can

The Golden Hours: A Guide to Photographing the Light of Sunrises and Sunsets is written to help guide photographers
through the unique challenges that this light presents. By detailing the steps I go through to create my images both in the field and in the digital darkroom I explain how to transcend the disparity between your view and your results, allowing you to create realistic images of this beautiful light.

completely transform a landscape, manipulating an environment that usually can not be In this eBook, you will find detailed solutions to the challenges this light presents changed or controlled. You can create a complex or simple photograph by changing your from compositions to exposure difficulties so you can begin to photograph the golden depth, and this guide can show you how. hours with confidence and accuracy. Click here to learn more about The Art of Bokeh. Click here to learn more about The Golden Hours.

copyright information
All material in this eBook, other than the exceptions noted below, is Copyright Christopher ODonnell, All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission. Please contact me at christopher@christopherodonnellphotography.com (or by clicking here) if you would like to discuss redistribution options. Apple, iPhone, iPad are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. This eBook is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. This eBook is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, nor has it been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. Adobe, Acrobat, ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Adobe product screenshots reprinted with permission from Adobe Systems Incorporated. This eBook is not endorsed or sponsored by Adobe Systems Incorporated, publisher of Adobe Acrobat.

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