Exposure Blending With Luminosity Masks In Photoshop
Photographer Charles Cabrera demonstrates how to use exposure blending with luminosity masks in photoshop. The is an introduction series on using luminosity masks to improve your images. In this tutorial, you will learn to blend 2 exposures in Photoshop using luminosity masks.
Luminosity masks are a fantastic way to start creating top quality, clean images. That not only blend exposures much but more cleanly than HDR software. This beginner’s tutorial will show you the basics of exposure blending, how to layer in Photoshop and which exposures to use in blending
So we’re gonna work with two different images today, two different exposures. The exposures that you choose to blend should cover the full range of light in a given scene. Let me give you an idea of what I mean. So here in this image, for me, the brightest exposure should contain information in the darker areas. So in this case, here, the foreground, has got a lot of information and I’m kind of shooting into the light, so you’re gonna get this a lot. And so this is my other image.
So while your darker exposure should contain information in the brightest areas. So I have a lot more information in the sky but this is my darker image that I’m gonna choose for my exposure blending. So now we need to decide which of these two images are gonna be stacked on each other. Which one’s gonna be the base image and which one is gonna be above that. So usually, you work with your normally exposed image as the base layer to get the best results. And this could change but let’s start off this way.
So I want both of these images in the same document. So I’m going to get this image here and I’m gonna use my move tool. That’ B for the move tool. And old down the Shift key and I am gonna bring it into the other image. And right away, you see that they’re not aligned. So if I click Shift and select them both and if I come up here to Edit and Auto Align Layers, and right here where it says Auto, I want that selected and click OK. And Photoshop has aligned those right on top of each other. Usually, you do that because even though when I shot this, it was on a tripod, there may have been some movement and you don’t want the layers to be a little off as far as being right on top of each other. And if you’re not familiar with creating images with different exposures with your camera, let me know in the comments and I can create a video all about exposure bracketing using your camera. So let me know.
So we were talking about deciding which layer is going to be the base layer and which layer is going to be the top layer. And so right now, this is the darker layer but I want this one up here, which has got more information in the foreground. I want that to be the base layer and then what we’re gonna end up doing when we blend is I want the sky to come through and I wanna see that instead of the sky that looks like this. So that’s what we’re going for. So let’s start off by creating a black layer mask on layer zero. Layer zero up here is the layer that we’re going to mask into. So I’m gonna come down here to Add Layer Mask icon. Hold Alt or Option and click my black layer mask and I am going disable that layer for right now. So now we need to create a luminosity mask and we’re gonna create that on the base layer, so I’ll select that. And we’re going to go in our Channels panel and I’ve already got my actions set up here so I’m gonna run that.
So if you’ve not downloaded the action to create the luminosity mask, it’s in the link in the description. You can do that now. Or if you know how to create them manually. So I’m gonna come up here and create our luminosity masks. And there they are. So now we need to decide which one we’re gonna use. And I want to select the sky mostly. As much as possible. And every time I choose a different luminosity mask… See this one looks pretty good because the majority of the sky is selected. So in my case, it’s Lights 3 and if I hold down the Command or Control and click on the Lights 3 thumbnail, it has selected the brightest areas of the image for me. So now I can click on RGB, go back into my Layers panel. I’m gonna make this top layer visible and click on the layer mask. And I’m going to use my brush tool. B for the brush tool. I’m gonna use a large brush. And I’m gonna brush over my sky with a white brush here. You could see over here on the left my foreground color’s white and I’m gonna brush with white and as I brush, you can see it coming in. And you can decide how much you want to keep brushing. Every time you brush over, I’m at 45% flow and 100% opacity. But this is how you bring in or blend the sky, which had some of the darker information as far as the clouds. And remember, the layer below, the sky was really light and you didn’t see all this detail. So you can keep on brushing until you see something you like. So now if I press Control or Command + D, I’ve deselected that area. So it’s just blending two images. That’s the way you would do it very easily and now you can treat this as one image.
This layer zero up here, you can treat as one image and just like in the first video, how I showed you that you can now go back into your channels and choose other luminosity masks to work on other areas. So let’s do that. Let’s go further. Now we’re going back in your channels and let’s do something with the mid tones. And I’m just gonna choose something say Midtones 3. Command or Control and I’m gonna click on Midtones 3. And now you can see I have my marching ants. Click on RGB, go back into my Layer panel and I have my selection. You can see all my marching ants in the midtones and I’m going to use a curves adjustment layer this time. I’m gonna add some contrast here in the midtones. It’s with that S curve just like that. And now I’m gonna change the blend mode of this adjustments layer to luminosity because I don’t want there to be any effect in the color. So it’s just gonna affect the lightness of the image. And if you wanna know more about using curves adjustment layer,
I’ll put a link in the description in a YouTube card above. And now if I want to go further, let’s add a levels adjustment this time and I want to borrow this mask on layer zero. That mask is selecting the brightest areas or the sky. If I hold down Alt or Option and click and drag up, it says Replace Layer Mask? Yes. And now, I can change whatever I want about that layer mask in the midtones. I can see if I want some in the darker areas of the sky or brighten it up a little bit. And I’ll also put a link in the description and I could put a card above to give you more information about using the levels. But you can just vary it to add whatever kind of effect you want in the sky. You wanna a little bit of darkness and just play with it there and you can make it stand out and you can keep on going with this image. But very easy to blend two images in. As I said, you’ll come across this when you’re shooting like into the light.
Check out my photography website here 👉 https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com
Check out these tutorials on using levels and curves in photoshop 👉 https://charlescabrera.com/how-to-adjust-levels-in-photoshop/