photo class nnc
train blended
Processing a single image and then blending
This tutorial works well for a single photograph that has been taken and exposed correctly. You can then process the photograph for different areas of the picture and then blend the two pictures. For example we can process a photo for the sky then process it for the foreground and then blend them.
It is important that you don’t crop, rotate or resize the photo until they are blended otherwise you will have different photos and ghosting effects on them.
The following example processing a sky and blending it with a foreground.
1.Open your photo into Photoshop and go to the File menu and do Save As and save the picture as SKY
2.Duplicate your layer
3.Under the layers click on the half black half white circle and click on curves
4.This will now bring up a curves adjustment layer that allows to alter the picture. On the diagonal line click in the middle of it and pull it slowly towards the bottom right hand corner. You will notice a change in the sky. Change the curve until you are happy with how the sky looks. Don’t worry about how the foreground looks at all!
5.Once you are happy with the sky flatten your layers by going to Layer menu and select Flatten Image
6.Save the picture
7.Keep the Sky picture you have just altered open in Photoshop
8.Now open your original picture into Photoshop
9.Once they are both open you want to place the original picture on top of the Sky picture
10.To do this use the select tool from the left hand side tool bar (the select is the arrow too)
11.Now hold down the shift key click on your original image and drag it onto the top of the sky image.
12.If the pictures take up the whole of the screen you can still drag them on top of each other by dragging it into the name of the file at the top of the Photoshop screen and waiting until the other picture appears
13.Holding down the shift key is very important. This will line up the images exactly. If you didn’t hold down they shift key it would drop the photo on top of the other one wherever you let go of it
14.Once they are on top of each other you need to add a mask to your top layer – in this case the original picture
15.Click the square box with the circle in it under the layers to make a mask – this has to be done with the top layer selected – possibly now named as layer 1
16.We are now going to blend the layers very much like we have done with selective colours and the motion blurs but we will use the Gradient tool
17.Select the gradient tool from the tool bar (hovering your mouse over the icons will show you the tool names) or press G on the keyboard to select it
18.Use the Gradient tool to drag a line from the top of the picture to where the sky line ends
19.As the gradient tool is quite soft it will blend the top and bottom of the photo together so you will now have the sky you processed showing through and the nice clear foreground at the bottom
20.Finally flatten your image and save it with a new file name
train blended
Processing a single image and then blending
This tutorial works well for a single photograph that has been taken and exposed correctly. You can then process the photograph for different areas of the picture and then blend the two pictures. For example we can process a photo for the sky then process it for the foreground and then blend them.
It is important that you don’t crop, rotate or resize the photo until they are blended otherwise you will have different photos and ghosting effects on them.
The following example processing a sky and blending it with a foreground.
1.Open your photo into Photoshop and go to the File menu and do Save As and save the picture as SKY
2.Duplicate your layer
3.Under the layers click on the half black half white circle and click on curves
4.This will now bring up a curves adjustment layer that allows to alter the picture. On the diagonal line click in the middle of it and pull it slowly towards the bottom right hand corner. You will notice a change in the sky. Change the curve until you are happy with how the sky looks. Don’t worry about how the foreground looks at all!
5.Once you are happy with the sky flatten your layers by going to Layer menu and select Flatten Image
6.Save the picture
7.Keep the Sky picture you have just altered open in Photoshop
8.Now open your original picture into Photoshop
9.Once they are both open you want to place the original picture on top of the Sky picture
10.To do this use the select tool from the left hand side tool bar (the select is the arrow too)
11.Now hold down the shift key click on your original image and drag it onto the top of the sky image.
12.If the pictures take up the whole of the screen you can still drag them on top of each other by dragging it into the name of the file at the top of the Photoshop screen and waiting until the other picture appears
13.Holding down the shift key is very important. This will line up the images exactly. If you didn’t hold down they shift key it would drop the photo on top of the other one wherever you let go of it
14.Once they are on top of each other you need to add a mask to your top layer – in this case the original picture
15.Click the square box with the circle in it under the layers to make a mask – this has to be done with the top layer selected – possibly now named as layer 1
16.We are now going to blend the layers very much like we have done with selective colours and the motion blurs but we will use the Gradient tool
17.Select the gradient tool from the tool bar (hovering your mouse over the icons will show you the tool names) or press G on the keyboard to select it
18.Use the Gradient tool to drag a line from the top of the picture to where the sky line ends
19.As the gradient tool is quite soft it will blend the top and bottom of the photo together so you will now have the sky you processed showing through and the nice clear foreground at the bottom
20.Finally flatten your image and save it with a new file name