tutorial: Multiple Exposures

Bendr

With the recent lunar eclipse, someone asked about my technique for a multiple exposure shot, so here it is!

1.I just started out by setting up my camera on a tripod and taking a bunch of photos without moving the camera.



2.Open all of the exposures in photoshop.



3. Then you create a blank image with the same dimensions as the originals, Then go through each image, using Control+A to select, and Ctrl+C to copy, then Ctrl+V to paste each picture into it's own layer on the blank image


4. Now once you have all of the images on layers you set all of the layers, except the bottom-most one, to "screen blending mode".



5.this will make it look as if you had exposed one frame of traditional film repeatedly. giving the following results...




Now you should be all set, you can flatten the image or if you need to, it can be cropped. And it should be done!





One of the really cool things about doing it doing it digitally, is if one of the exposures doesn't look good in the composition, you can turn off visibilty of that layer and see how it looks, then if you prefer it without it, you just leave it off.

Also,
I will admit, with my other one I did it slightly differently.
The way I did it on the other one, You add a layermask to each image, and draw on the layermask, all of the parts you want to see through. Though I think the screen blending mode is the better way, I just didn't think of doing it that way until it was already done. I think the only disadvantage to doing it this way is it may slightly amplify any noise in the sky.

dmmattix

Ya gotta love Blending modes
They are so useful for so many things. I just wish I had the mastery of them all.

Thanks for the information,

Mike

OffTopic

Thanks for posting that tutorial bendr. I didn't think about using the screen blend mode, and that made it incredibly easy. One thing I find easier is to drag and drop the images into the new document, rather than using copy and paste.

Here's my meager attempt using your method. I had to move throughout the evening to keep the moon in sight, so rather than the multiple exposure effect, it worked well to show all of the phases of the eclipse.

Hehe, yeah the size of the moon is a little off on some...poor cropping on my part due to my short glass.

SloYerRoll

Bendr wrote:

Control+A to select, and Ctrl+C to copy, then Ctrl+V to paste each picture into it's own layer on the blank image

Nice tut Bendr.
On a side note there is much more to OffTopics comment than she may realize. If your machine is having a tough time w/ this many files. Instead of copying and pasting into your final image, just select the image you want to bring into your canvas and use the move toov (v) and drag it onto your new image.
This will keep your memory buffer at an all time low and keep PS moving at the speeds you want it.

This point is null if you have suffecient RAM though.

-Jon

OffTopic

Good point - I wasn't thinking about a memory issue - it's out of sheer laziness that I find it easier to drag it into the new file. Less key strokes!