Blending tutorial

Preface
This is an advanced tutorial and assumes basic knowledge of Digital Photo Professional 3.8.0.0 (comes with a Canon camera,
updates are posted on canons web site) and Photoshop, either CS2 or higher or elements 7+ should be fine. This tutorial was
made using PSE 8.
Dont be disappointed if you dont get this down in just one sitting. Repeat it a couple of times and let the info sink in for a
while.
This isnt a one size fits all solution and should be adapted to other situations. Its a good starting point though.

Shooting time
First of all you should have 3 images of a sunset at different exposures like 0 EC, -2EC and +2EC. See AEB in the camera manual.
Make sure youve used a tripod so that each image matches up perfectly. Shoot M mode and in raw. Make sure youve exposed
the darkest image where only the sun is blown out. The brightest image should have plenty detail in the foreground.
Settings
Use f/8, iso 100 and whatever shutter speeds that allows for good exposures. If you use a 10mm lens try manual focus and do
some test shots for the best DOF. Try to get the horizon and the foreground in good focus and memorize the focus position on
the lens or add a mark to it on the focus scale. Thatll allow you to quickly setup your shot. This may also work with longer focal
lengths, like 15 17 or 18mm Try it out! But make sure to check focus every time you move to a new location!
If youre looking for that smooth water look youll need a 10 stop ND filter. The Lee big stopper is currently the best but also
the most expensive. The B+W 10 stop ND filter is a good second choice. Stacking the filter with a circular polarizer will help
cutting through water reflections and increase color saturation. It will hard vignette in the extreme corners at 10mm though, if
youre using screw on filters. The Lee filter system in a slot in type and should be OK. The B+W also has soft vignetting and can
be up to 2 stops difference in the corners compared to the center. Vignetting can be esthetically pleasing though. Also note
that 10 stop ND filters have a color cast, the B+W has a magenta/orange cast which can be difficult to get rid of. The Lee has a
blueish cast and is much easier to get rid of.
Raw conversion
Raw tab. Here youll take the 3 raw images into DPP for editing. We want to start out with a flat looking image in faithful picture style like image number 1. Set WB to daylight, tweak it using tune. Everything is zeroed out, except for contrast: -4. Make
sure no sharpening is applied.

In the RGB tab make sure everything is zeroed except for saturation, leave it to 100.

In the NR/Lens/ALO tab You can use whatever noise reduction tickles your fancy, but most important of all is the Lens aberration correction Tune... See image 3. Make sure you correct the CA as much as possible. Drag a point close to any corner and
something with a high contrast edge without blown highlights. Use the R and B controls to adjust CA. If you want vignetting
and distortion corrected you can check those boxes too. Distortion correction will make it easier to level the image later on.

Edit->copy recipe. Edit->Paste Recipe to all images. This will make sure everything is synchronized between each exposure
and that no color shifts will be seen in the end result.

Hit the batch process button top right and export as 8 bit tifs for elements or 16 bit tifs for Photoshop cs2+. Elements has no
editing capabilities we use for 16 bit files.

Blending in Photoshop
Load the images into Photoshop. Take the darkest image and activate the Move tool (black mouse cursor icon or hit M key).
Take a brighter image and move it over to the darkest image holding down the shift key. This will move it to the darkest image
as a layer centered in place. Drag the other brighter image into the darkest one too. Rearrange the layers so the brightest is on
top. See image 5 and 6.

Mask trick PSE

Now is the time to branch off CS2 and elements users. We are going to use layer masks which is not directly supported in elements. Whenever you read: Add layer mask do the following in elements as a workaround:
1. Select image below the image you wish to add a mask to.
2. Add an levels adjustment layer and leave the default values.
3. Hold down alt key and hover the mouse between the levels and the layer above until it shows overlapping circles as a cursor and left click.
4. The layer above will now be indented with a small arrow down on the left. This marks the layer as a clipping mask for the
adjustment layer. This in effect allows you to use the mask on the levels adjustment layer as a mask for the normal image layer.
5. White indicates no transparency, black represents total transparency. All the gray values are different levels of transparency.
You can see the default is white. Invert it using ctrl+i and the layer seems to be gone. Use a white brush to paint on this layer
to bring back certain parts. This is what were going to use to blend the layers! So a mask defines how much the layers beneath
show through this layer.
Blending continued
Hide the top layer so that only 2 layers are shown (click on the eye in the layers panel). Add a mask to the second layer (middle). In Elements it should look like image 7.

Activate the brush tool (B key). Use the D key to make the foreground and background white/black. Use the X key to swap
them around. Go into the edit->preferences->display & cursors and activate full size brush tip and check Show Cross hair in

brush tip. Hit OK. This will allow you to see the true size of the brush and see the center.
What we want to do now is paint in some detail around the blown sun. Hit 3 twice. This will set opacity of the brush to 33%.
Dont hit enter afterward. Paint around the sun until the glare is mostly gone. I used a 300px soft brush on a 5200 pixel wide
image. Size the brush accordingly to your size image. Use the X key to swap the brush to white to paint areas that are too dark
back in. See image 8.

Move on to the third, still hidden image. Unhide it by clicking on the empty box where the eye had been. Add layer mask to
this layer. See image 9.

Use a very large brush, say 1200px. Use the [ and ] keys to resize the brush. Opacity still at 33%, black brush (hit d, then x). Now
paint along the sky strip and over the ridges of mountains but try to stay within the skies limits and not paint on the foreground. Do multiple strokes as youve set opacity to 33%. You can fine tune the foreground like the rocks on the left using a
smaller brush. Make sure you dont cross the ridge line with the outer rim of the brush. Keep making the brush smaller and do
multiple strokes along the ridge until youre happy with how it looks.
You can hide and unhide the mask by shift clicking on it multiple times. You can use alt+click on the mask to see the mask in
its entirety without the photo. You can clean it up by removing bits youve missed.
If you feel the sky is still too bright, paint on the middle image mask using black to make it darker. Make sure you paint back in
the rock to the left.

Use alt+click on the eye of the background layer to see your progress as it will hide all other layers. Alt click again and all the
layers will be activated once more.
The overall blend is complete. Now its time for some fine tuning.
This would be a good time to save your progress.
Removing flare circles
Add a levels adjustment layer at the top. Hold down alt key and click and hold down the left mouse button on the white
triangle of the levels panel directly under the levels histogram. This allows you to see what is blown. You can go back to any of
the masks to correct the blown bits. See image 10.

Reds means blown red channel, green means blown green channel, yellow means blown red and green channels and white
means all channels are blown etc. The same goes for the black triangle but then for the shadows instead of the highlights.
See the lens flare on the rocks half way in the image, the round reddish circle? Zoom in to it. Were going to use the levels adjustment layer to remove it. Invert the mask to black (ctrl+i) while the levels layer is selected. Paint a circle over the red circled
flare. Remember to set opacity to 100% by typing 100. Go back to the levels panel. Choose the red channel, use the middle triangle (grey) and slide it slowly to the right. See how the red disappears? Youll probably notice you have to touch up the mask
for the edges. Set opacity to 33% again and make a couple of circles until all the red is gone. I used a 50px brush. Go back to
the levels panel and make some final adjustments so its totally gone. You may have to adjust the RGB channel to remove the
luminance that has remained.

Double click on the hand in the tools panel to see the image in its entirety. Click the levels eye repeatedly to see how the flare
has gone and if more adjustments needs to be made.
Pretty nifty for just a levels layer and a mask huh?
Save your progress under a different filename.

Removing fine detail and keeping the general shape without cloning
If you find it convenient to flatten the layers now you may do so now.
Ok next were going to have a look at the footprints right in the foreground. Ugly isnt it? Such a serene scene where the prints
are discordant to the whole scene. This will take some more advanced tricks to remove.
Zoom in to the footprints. Were going to use a high pass filter that adobe was so kind to make available in Elements.
Make a copy of the background layer or if you didnt flatten the image: select all, ctrl+shift+c (merged copy) ctrl+v (paste).
A high pass filter filters the image and allows all higher frequencies (high details) to pass through. What we want to do is
remove the footprints. The detail of the prints is very high and we want to leave the soft flow of the beach. The high pass filter
is a logical choice.

Apply filter->others->high pass and use radius 80. Everything 80 pixels across is represented in shades deviating from 50%
grey. This is very convenient for us because we can use layer mode soft light to remove the footprints. Soft light layer mode
doesnt change anything when you fill the layer with 50% grey (R,G,B = 128,128,128).
Set layer mode to Soft light (in the layers panel, see the drop down list with normal? click it and youll find soft light listed
there. If you put something brighter than 50% grey itll brighten anything below that layer, the same goes for darkening below 50% grey. See image 12

What happened? This has made it worse! Correct. Invert the layer and it will do the opposite. Now the whole image looks
washed out and faded. We need to limit this effect to just the prints. Add a layer mask. Invert the mask and paint back in over
the footprints.
Ok, so this is not enough, just copy both the levels and high pass layers to add some more effect to it.

Alright so youve preserved the overall shape of the beach and sand but the fine grain detail is now gone. Well use the noise
filter to add some noise/grain back in.

Using noise to cover it up

Add a new normal layer by alt+clicking on the new layer button. Set layer mode to soft light and fill the layer with 50% grey..
Zoom in to a part where you see some normal sand and a part weve removed the foot prints.
Go to Filter->noise->Add noise. Set percentage to 40% then use gaussian blur at radius 1.7. Just play around with how large
you want the grain to be. Ive added another noise pass with percentage 20% and blur 0.7. You could sharpen it using USM
(UnSharpen Mask) for more detail.
Summing it all up youve learned:
Blending 3 AEB shots by hand/brush
Removed a flare using levels and masks
Removed footprints in the sand, this technique can also be used to remove wrinkles but keep the general skin texture.
Theres a more convenient action for this for Photoshop cs1..5.
Added detail/grain using noise to the sand
Youve learned some workarounds for adding masks in Elements
Some keyboard shortcuts by using one hand on the keyboard and the other at the mouse. In that combo you can work
very quickly. All in all if you do this tutorial a couple of times you should be able to do this all in about 5-10 mins.
This tutorial was created by Josha Beukema (C) 2010. This document may be used for personal non profit use only. It may not
be reproduced in any way without written consent of the author.