My First PS Merge

dlplumer

I know it's not a big deal for all you PS gurus, but for me it is a "breakthrough"

Give me your honest candid critique.

Nikolai

dlplumer wrote:

I know it's not a big deal for all you PS gurus, but for me it is a "breakthrough"
Give me your honest candid critique.

Very nice, Dan!
I think hill edges are burnt a bit too much, but this is hard to overcome...

dlscott56

Wow Dan, it looks great! Don't know enough about PS merging to be of much help for a critique on your technique though.

coscorrosa

WOOHOO! Yeah there's some dark stuff there (a common problem, the other common thing is bright halos) but you're definitely on the right track, and this is a better shot (IMO) than you'd get with Photomatix. I'm still getting the hang of manual exposure blends myself, and I don't know if I'll ever be perfect at it, but you're now at the 90% stage, the last 10% takes a long time, but sometimes the 90% is all you need to achieve the right result.

dlplumer

coscorrosa wrote:

WOOHOO! Yeah there's some dark stuff there (a common problem, the other common thing is bright halos) but you're definitely on the right track, and this is a better shot (IMO) than you'd get with Photomatix. I'm still getting the hang of manual exposure blends myself, and I don't know if I'll ever be perfect at it, but you're now at the 90% stage, the last 10% takes a long time, but sometimes the 90% is all you need to achieve the right result.

Thanks. I get that Ron, but at least I now know how to operationally make blends.

Rob Zijlstra

Dan,
I don't know how you did it, but for me it's one of the finest shots I saw lately!
Thanks for sharing.

bryanj87

Nicely done! Yes, you do have some dark halos here and there. I've found using a Wacom tablet instead of a mouse can help you reduce these when drawing the masks.

dlplumer

Rob Zijlstra wrote:

Dan,
I don't know how you did it, but for me it's one of the finest shots I saw lately!
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Rob.

dlplumer

bryanj87 wrote:

Nicely done! Yes, you do have some dark halos here and there. I've found using a Wacom tablet instead of a mouse can help you reduce these when drawing the masks.

Thanks Bryan. I'll check that out:D

kdog

Wow! Looks good to me!

-joel

Spinney

Which blend technique did you use? I have been playing with blending as well and Phtomatix generally does not give me what I am looking for!

RuiMLopes

WOW! Looking great to me! I´d like to get similar results using Photomatix but generally I end up with very small number of keepers... still so much to learn...<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p>
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Rui<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p>
D300, D200 coupled with some fine Nikon glass<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p>
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My Smugmug galleries: http://ruilopes.smugmug.com/<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p>

dlplumer

Spinney wrote:

Which blend technique did you use? I have been playing with blending as well and Phtomatix generally does not give me what I am looking for!

I am a Photomatix user myself, but I did this in Photoshop.

1. Two exposures one over the other

2. Create a layer mask

3. Paint brush to blend