Exposure Blending | Quick & Easy Tutorial 

Thank you for not adding loud and abnoxious music in the background of your video. Has a big effect on concentration!

I have practiced it, it's easy to follow, thank you very much👍

I like your easy simple explanation for Exposure Blending.

You got me as a subscriber with this simply explained video. Thank you Henry.

Yes you have made an easy explanation of how to blend two photos together. I usually have observed it being done with using the paintbrush, this way is new to me. Thanks for your tutorial Henry.

Excellent video thank you

Great! Nice and easy.

Thanks for sharing

Sooo helpful thank you so much

Thank you!!❤

Thanks for easiest explanation in RU-vid

Brilliant thanks

I watched many other tutorials and couldn't figure this out. But with your tutorial I did it the first time ! Thank you !

thank you so much. Your video is very helpful for me.

Thanks, great video!

Perfect lesson I’ve been trying to do this for years.

Its only easy when you know how!! Thanks for that. Stay safe

Great tutorial .. cheers !!

I’ve watched so many camera/editing tutorials and I haven’t come across anybody who explains things this clearly. I’m not a photographer, I just have a camera and I’m learning to do these things and most people use words and terms that I have no idea what they main. You explain the meaning of those terms, making it easy to understand. Subscribed!

This is so nice, thank you so much :)

Simple! Loved it. Cheers Henry!

Superb. You have made blending pretty easy to understand.

Great easy video, well done

Ah yes, straight to the point and you making it so easy. thanks mate, cheers

Glad I searched for this on your channel. I use Affinity Photo and the instruction videos on various channels relating to Affinity, for exposure blending have been ridiculously complex. This technique will make it all the more easier. Thanks Henry.

An approach to blending that I had not seen. Thanks for sharing it!

Made it easy, will try soon, thank you from an old film photographer, learning so much from a young chap like you!

Amazing. That's the greatness of Photoshop: you have hundreds of ways to do the same thing. Never thought of using gradient tool, I've always used luminosity masks but I think that in some situations gradient tool is far more handy. Thanks

Wow, I've been watching heaps of exposure blending videos and this is soooo much easier, thanks Henry.

excellent Henry. Very straightforward

It's so easy for that shot, but you had a super easy blend.

Easy peasy

More of these tutorials please. Awesome explanation of a technique I have never tried

Thanks Henry for a straight forward no nonsense tutorial, love it 🥊🥊🥊

Straight forward vlog. Excellent.

Awesome and easy tutorial! All the others make it look so much more complicated

The benifit of exposure blending is having the power to combine the two images a bit more seamlessly than using a grad filter in the field. May I suggest you open up the shadows on you sky file and darken your foreground file slightly, having the ability to match the tones in the transition area is the real key here, something that simply cannot be done in field with filters. You can do that in camera raw and then open the files as smart objects in Photoshop so that you can still work on the raws is beneficial as well. Also to avoid having a destructive workflow maybe avoid flattening the image.

very simple easy to follow. Thank you

Nice!

Great video and really easy. Thank you.

Thank you. Straight to the point. If you could include the steps taken in note form it will help even more. Thanking you in advance.

Henry you're a star! Followed your instructions which I used for combining 2 photos for sharpness from foreground to background. Yes you can do this in other ways and with more bells and whistles, but when you are starting out learning PS this is the sort of video you need. Simple to understand what's going on. Thanks.

Great video, I am normally a Wildlife Photographer, but I am trying to do some more Landscape/Woodland photography, lately I have been thinking about these "exsposure problems" and here you are, showing the selution! Thank You! - Very Good Video!

At last I can do it now because of your video.

Just found this ! Great, simple explanation Henry👍

I CAN'T WAIT TO TRY THAT! THANKS FOR DOING THIS VIDEO!

That's great Henry, thanks.

This is always something I wanted to learn how to do and, after watching your video, I finally did. Besides the Gradient tool, I also used the brush in “subtract” mode. Worked like a champ! Thank you!

I've always had a hard time learning this RU-vid photographers over do this you made this do easy thank you. I have subscribed hoping to learn as much as I can.

Another tip in the bag ! Gonna get some old images looked up and start experimenting . Thanks again Henry .

Brilliant and beautifully explained, as always. Thanks Henry :)

you made this so easy. thank you!!

Great.. Thank u very much

Very useful tips, thanks 😊

Thanks, this was very helpful.

thank you for making it simple!!!

So damn helpful! Thank you!

Wow. Quick and easy tip. Thank you.

Thanks for the Vlog Henry. Just getting into this so appreciate the tutorial. Appreciate all your efforts with all the vlogs. Beer/coffee on the way to your Ireland trip. Good luck🤞👍🏻

Brill 👍🏻

Awesome, thank you!

Hi Henry, really easy to follow and understand, thank you for making the time to put this together. I always use my filters to balance an exposure but may well give bracketing a go now after watching this. Thank you 😊

So excited to come across this tutorial Henry, I took some sunset shots in Derbyshire last night and can try this technique, so thank you for making this clip. Wish me luck! 🤣

Thanks for all your hard work and great content. May I just mention a couple of things as a retired old codger on a budget. I will buy software outright but cannot afford monthly subscriptions so I did buy Aurora HDR to help with merging bracketed shots. Of course it will produce nasty overcooked images but also subtle results that some might like. There are lots of sliders! I retired to live near the coast in Finistère, Britanny and the opportunities for landscape photography are endless. The light can be amazing. I am so happy I found your channel Henry.

oh is really fantastic congratulations

Thanks dude, always wondered how this was done. completely forgot the process. keep up the great content

Very interesting, thank you! So far I have been using Lightroom's HDR function or have done this with layer masks in Photoshop. Will definitely give this a shot!

I would seriously recommend opening the photos through lightroom using 'edit as layers in Photoshop' this way when you have done the exposure blend you can ctrl or cmd s, to save a blended tiff. The reason I say that is that lightroom then knows exactly where that photo came from and all the layers will be intact for future changes. In general, you should only save,move,open etc raw and tiff files through lightroom so lightroom can keep track of the images.

Fantastic that mate

ive just sub'd mate that's the simplest way iv heard it explained after looking at loads of vids ta.

Very good VLOG Henry.

YOU LOOK SO MUCH LIKE ARSENAL'S MARTIN ODEGAARD

Brilliant thank you

Thank you so much for this. I have a much older version of Photoshop that doesn't have this baked in as a script, but it gave me an idea... Using copy and paste functions I figure I can achieve the same effect by opening both files separately and then copying the foreground image from it's own file to be pasted as a new layer on top of the background image file. Then it's just a case of using the gradient mask as per your video. The only potential issue that I can see is in lining up the two layers to be pixel perfect but hey, that's what zoom is for. Once again than you. :)

Well easy M8

Amazing! How could it turn out like that.

Always been thinking about getting LR and PS and after seeing you on last few vlogs, I will have to get it. I've been making do with snapseed(which i must admit, does most things on my phone) but the time has come. Keep these vids coming. Great to see and learn. Cheers

Never thought of using the gradient tool before. Seems to be a great deal of options for blending exposures. I use Affinity Photo, which has a feature called blend ranges. It's basically a graph that looks like a curves adjustment, only the graph starts as a flat line across the top. You can then blend tonal ranges in or out of the image (i.e. luminosity masking), either with adjustment layers, filters, or image layers. It's a very powerful tool but it's difficult to fine-tune luminosity masks such as you would with panel plugins like Raya Pro, TK Actions or Lumenzia. The problem is visualizing the mask. There is a couple of workarounds for this but it's still not quite "there". I will definitely try this gradient option out. It may be very useful in Affinity in combination with blend ranges. Anything's got to be better than paying for a faffing with grads. PS can you not move the nodes of the gradient once you have initially placed it, instead of having to begin again? And can you not visualize its effect on real time?

Excellent tutorial Henry, seems a lot better than merging 3+ photos as hdr in lightroom! Is there a similar method for "focus stacking" an image? Tutorial on that maybe??

Nice Tutorial, what do you think about the modes Median Mean and the others? Thanks

Interesting technique, Henry, but my first reaction is to raise the LR HDR approach, as did comments below. In LR individual adjustments (e.g., luminosity masking) can be made to each photo before HDR merge and you can have more than two photos to merge. At any rate, to drive home the differences I suggest a follow up vid to this one, using LR HDR merge for the same images. Then compare results. Does that make sense? Noticed that both images were TIFF format - would native NEF format of your Nikon make a difference (e.g., dynamic range)? Take care. 😷

cool thank you

Hi Henry, as you said it is truly simple bending images. Very good tutorial. Have you made a tutorial on how to blend multiple exposures of + O - exposure values ?

Excellent tutorial Henry, thank you. Unfortunately, as a beginner, I didn't get my two exposures level - I obviously moved my camera more than I thought 😪🤣

Cheers Henry - you're a natural! Pano stitching coming soon?? T 🙂

Doing this in the darkroom still looks less artificial and more artistic. See Bill Brandt. Some day computers will get there, but it still looks like hdr to me.

Super like and thanks for this nice video. I have one question. Is there any significant difference between exposer blending and exposer bracketing for this kind of high dynamic range shot.

I use LR to create HDR images, non-destructively. It is automatic. I use PS for focus stacking, which LR is not able to do.

Hi Henry. Thank you for your Channel. In case of 3 or more images to blend. Have you tried File>Automate>Photomerge in Photoshop? It does automatically the masking job. Then you can refine it!

Ugh this worked on the first attempt but I wanted to adjust as shown and did Command-Z to give it a re-try. Every subsequent attempt covers my whole image with white or black (depending where I clicked and dragged) and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!

nice

Hello I already knew how to blend two exposures with your method but it doesn't work if, for example, a tree or a rock stands out in the sky (on the foreground) Do you have a solution to work around this problem? A suggestion for a next video, maybe.... Thank's

Nice one, is it similar to focus stacking?

Cool video, you explained this task in a very clear and simple manner. This is very helpful as I find getting the exposure correct for the whole photo can be tricky at times! Especially the sky. How much does photo shop cost?

Henry, will this work if your are photographing the waves beach front and want waves to look silky smooth ? Basically, long exposure photography ?

Hi, can i use this method to combine 3 images? The images are, normally exposed, under exposed and over exposed...

Hello Henry. Thank you very much. I really enjoy your channel. You present what can seem quite complicated stuff in a straightforward, no frills, relaxed manner, which suits me down to the ground; I'm 74 coming up and love my photography, and like to learn. I came here looking for how to do exposure blending, having heard you mention it previously, along with focus stacking. One question arises from this video if I may, please. Right at the end, almost as a throwaway line you mention "I export the image to my desktop and then I import it into Lightroom AND START MY EDIT". It puzzles me why would you just not stay in Photoshop to edit (or am I missing a very important trick or function of Lightroom that Photoshop doesn't do so well?). I shoot in NEF plus JPG (one to "play with" and one to share straightaway with the family). It's my understanding the main functions of Lightroom are cataloguing, simple editing and so-on, but have never used it, and do my editing in Photoshop. I'd love to hear your reasons for switching your image out into Lightroom please. Keep up the good work! With thanks again, and kind regards. Roy.

Can i create 2 exposure from 1 raw image in lightroom and then blend them together ? Will i get a better picture or will it be the same if i just deeply edited the single raw image ?

Thanks for the tutorial man!! but i wants to know how i can make this process with more then 2 photos?

Would max control be to paint and adjust opacity?