Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
WORKAROUND WORKSHOP: MANUALLY BLENDING EXPOSURES
Elements' Photomerge Exposure tool makes it pretty easy to blend exposures, but you may not
care for the final result, no matter how much effort you put into it. In that case, you can just blend
the images yourself by stacking them up:
1.
Open both exposures in Expert mode
. You can work with only two images at once
when you do it this way.
2.
Pick the photo with the largest amount of properly exposed area
. That's going to be
the top layer of your combined image.
3.
Turn that photo into a regular layer
. Double-click its name in the Layers panel to un-
lock it; you can then give it a name, if you want, or just click OK to accept the one Ele-
ments gives it. A faster way is just to click the padlock icon on the layer's thumbnail,
which lets you skip having to OK the new layer.
4.
Apply a layer mask to it
. Click the layer mask icon at the top of the Layers panel (the
circle within a square).
5.
Combine the images
. From the Layers panel, drag the masked photo's layer thumbnail
onto the other image's main image window, or select the masked photo by pressing
Between Images
for more about moving layers from one photo to another.)
6.
Edit the layer mask to combine the images
. On the layer mask, paint out the badly ex-
posed areas of the masked photo to let the well-exposed parts of the other image show
through. See
Editing a Layer Mask
for the details of how to do this.
To add additional exposures, merge the two existing layers first (
Merging and Flattening Layers
)
,
and then repeat the process with another image.
Photo Filter
Elements' Photo Filter feature gives you a host of nifty filters to work with. They're the di-
gital equivalent of the lens-mounted filters used in traditional film photography, and they can
help you correct problems with an image's white balance and perform a bunch of other fixes
from the seriously photographic to the downright silly. For example, you can correct bad skin
tone or dig out an old photo of your fifth-grade nemesis and make him green.
Figure 8-13
shows the Photo Filter in action.
