Combining Exposures: Am I a Bad Person?

[Steph_B]

Hello everyone!

I recently learned how to combine two exposures in PS... E.g, when you have bracketed shots of the same scene, you can combine the dark and light pics together and keep the best parts of them (I am sure you are all aware of this, and that I am just rediscovering the wheel here).

I have attached here an example that I played with yesterday. This is typically what you get when you take pictures of mountains: burned snow/clouds and nice FG... or dark FG and nice snow and clouds.... While a plit ND might help you compensate for it, this is not always a panacea, mostly when the silhouette of the mountains are jagged.

The third shot is a combination of the first two. There was also a little bit of tweaking in PS to get the colors OK (at least on my screen!).

This combination was surprisingly easy to do... and at 4000 dpi, I could not even see the 'montage'.... But is this RIGHT? Am I a bad person? Or have people done this since times already past and forgotten?

Anyway... I hope nobody is going to have a heart attack with this (I know that some of you are already choking when I mention 'cloning' ).

Cheers,

Steph.

[Steph_B]

Oh, by the way,

This was taken at Garibaldi Lake, about 120 km north of Vancouver BC. Beautiful place and gorgeous hike!

F100 - 24 mm F16 + pola and split ND.... and obviously tripod (big and heavy: a real pleasure when you hike!)

[Todd Patten]

Nice! This technique is HIGHLY recommended by many sites/books/articles. The results here speak for themselves. This is no different then what would be done in a custom lab on film.

You may be a bad person, but not for the reasons posted here

[opus]

Oh, your entire character is called into question here, every good and moral thing you've done ERASED by your actions in Photoshop.




No, seriously, this technique is a good thing.

[another view]

Bad person? Come to the Chicago Gathering and we'll decide for ourselves...

I'd say with landscape photography you'd need to do this pretty often to get a good shot. It's something that's been done for years, just with different techniques (split ND filter only). Ever get the split in the wrong place? Then you learn to "bracket" your shots by moving the filter a little bit in both directions of where you think it should be... but still sometimes (especially in low light) it's not quite where you wanted it! Of course, this works best when you have a straight line - and we have plenty of those here in the midwest...

The only thing that bothers me on this shot is the heavy shadows on the upper left, in the trees. I think if you cropped most of that out, leaving the bank of the stream, you'd have a good shot.

[Steph_B]

Pfew! Now I can breathe better.

No, seriously, I am glad that combining exposure is not considered to be some kind of photo montage. It seems from your comments that this has been around for awhile now. I should definitely go out more often!

I agree with Another View that the big black blob is distracting. His cropping suggestion is right on the money. It does improve the overall pic. While this not a great shot by any means, I am always happy to salvage what I can.

Thank you all for salvaging my self-esteem!

[Todd Patten]

I was thinking that you might need to be spanked.

[Outdoorsman]

Check this out. This was a ruined shot. I had bracketed the shot, but somehow (operator error) the camera back got opened. I've only done that one other time, so it was a great shock. I realized the last frames were the waterfall. I hoped they would be ok. They were not. But luckily the first and last frames were exactly half ok. The middle of the frame was screwed, but the top of one frame and the bottom of another frame were still intact. The middle frame was ruined. So I combined the two to remake the scene. I would have had the finished product without digital tweaking anyway, so what's the harm in using the existing half-images to remake the scene? I didn't add or remove anything (other than by cropping) so I feel that this image stands fine as an ethically right representation of the scene. And what you've done here is just fine by me.

[Irish]

Hello everyone!

I recently learned how to combine two exposures in PS... E.g, when you have bracketed shots of the same scene, you can combine the dark and light pics together and keep the best parts of them (I am sure you are all aware of this, and that I am just rediscovering the wheel here).

This combination was surprisingly easy to do... and at 4000 dpi, I could not even see the 'montage'.... But is this RIGHT? Am I a bad person? Or have people done this since times already past and forgotten?

Anyway... I hope nobody is going to have a heart attack with this (I know that some of you are already choking when I mention 'cloning' ).

Hey Steph, I have heard and read of this technique but to date have not tried it. Thanks for showing a practical example..the combined image looks great to me too.

For those who are choking, I say, welcome to the 21st century. GET USED TO IT!

It seems like the jury is out on the question of your "bad" character.......????? Are you a photoholic too?????

[Steph_B]

Hey Steph, I have heard and read of this technique but to date have not tried it. Thanks for showing a practical example..the combined image looks great to me too.

For those who are choking, I say, welcome to the 21st century. GET USED TO IT!

It seems like the jury is out on the question of your "bad" character.......????? Are you a photoholic too?????

Actually, as long as the two scanned slides line up well, you're in business. It's quite easy to do. You should give it a try!

I am using a technique described in a PS book. I would happily share it with you, but then I would violate the author's copyrights... THAT would make me a bad person!

Cheers,

Steph.

[Revolver]

The final result is a much better representation of what you actually saw while standing at that spot. I think it's great!
Jamie

[Seb]

Hello everyone!

I recently learned how to combine two exposures in PS... E.g, when you have bracketed shots of the same scene, you can combine the dark and light pics together and keep the best parts of them (I am sure you are all aware of this, and that I am just rediscovering the wheel here).

I have attached here an example that I played with yesterday. This is typically what you get when you take pictures of mountains: burned snow/clouds and nice FG... or dark FG and nice snow and clouds.... While a plit ND might help you compensate for it, this is not always a panacea, mostly when the silhouette of the mountains are jagged.

The third shot is a combination of the first two. There was also a little bit of tweaking in PS to get the colors OK (at least on my screen!).

This combination was surprisingly easy to do... and at 4000 dpi, I could not even see the 'montage'.... But is this RIGHT? Am I a bad person? Or have people done this since times already past and forgotten?

Anyway... I hope nobody is going to have a heart attack with this (I know that some of you are already choking when I mention 'cloning' ).

Cheers,

Steph.

Hello Steph!

First of all, welcome back. I can't quite remember the last time I saw you down there but that was long ago.

About your picture, I have strictly no problem with it. You simply compensate for your camera incapacity (whether digital or film based) to record a wide dynamic range. Post processing is part of being a photographer and I am thinking that you did quite good here. I'd prefer the under exposed area in the left to be croped as Another View pointed out. As for the rest, good work.

Seb