Newbie wanting the forground of one exposure merged with the background of another

lisarhinehart

Hello

I took these shots back to back last night, and exposed one for the fireworks and the other for the people. Is there a way I can merge these two togehter using elements or lightroom? I have just purchased lightroom, it actually hasn't even shipped yet, and I'm not skilled with elements either, ugh! Think basic basic.

1. fireworks


2. people


3. I really like this firework shot better, but it wasn't taken back to back like the above shots, plus it is a completely different compostion, so I think it woudl be too difficult for me to merge or look too fake.


Thanks for checking it out-- I look forward to your responces!

jfriend

I did this version in Photoshop:



I simply opened both in Photoshop, then pasted the lighter one in a layer on top of the darker one, added a mask, then used a gradient at the horizon to block the top part of the image from the lighter top layer.

Here's what the layers palette looks like:

lisarhinehart

thank you
John,
Thanks! That looks cool. I tried to do what you explained on elements adn got the light layer on top of the dark but without the masks and gradient, it doen't look good. Would you be able to send me the one you worked on? That's a group of my friends and I wanted to send it to them. --Lisa

jfriend

lisarhinehart wrote:

John,
Thanks! That looks cool. I tried to do what you explained on elements adn got the light layer on top of the dark but without the masks and gradient, it doen't look good. Would you be able to send me the one you worked on? That's a group of my friends and I wanted to send it to them. --Lisa

If you have Elements, you may need to do it differently because it doesn't have regular layer masks.

Try this.

• Dark Layer on bottom
• Put an adjustment layer above that (any type will do) and don't change it's settings at all
• Put the light layer above the adjustment layer
• Group the adjustment layer and the top layer together (this will make the mask work for the top layer like I did in Photoshop)
• Then, put a gradient into the adjustment layer mask to hide the top part of the bright layer.