6 blended

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
Went to Valley of Fire yesterday, and I wanted to try not only bracketing, but practice my blending of multiple shots, and learn more with my aperture. I blended 6 shots together that had multiple exposure compensation applied. For some reason I couldn't get my camera to auto bracket the shots, so I tried doing it manually with the exp comp. I have only bracketed once before so I guess back to the manual to figure out how to set it up. As far as the blending of multiples & aperture...I think I am figuring it out. If this should be in the post processing thread let me know, but I wanted your advice and or suggestions.
DSC_7705-Edit-2.jpg
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Hey Darcy,

A few quick thoughts this morning.

1st, this is the best place for this photo so people can critique how you shot and processed this.

2nd. I don't use the bracket button myself, I prefer to manually change my exposure with the exposure compensation as you did.

3rd, looking at this scene I don't think you would have needed 6 exposures, the dynamic range isn't large enough. 2 or 3 exposures would have been enough. But, it's better to do more especially as you are learning this then to get back home and not have enough exposure range.

I need to go eat breakfast... :eek: After I will comment on the look of your image, which I will say overall looks really good. But with Critique we can offer a few different ideas or thoughts on it.
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Hi Darcy, I think your blending went really well. This would be a good one to post unprocessed versions of maybe 3 of the raw files. Very easy to do, Just open them without any changes and downrez to 3000 wide, and save to the critique gallery. Then you can embed them here.

I would post a light, dark and middle version.
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
Hey Darcy,

A few quick thoughts this morning.

1st, this is the best place for this photo so people can critique how you shot and processed this.

2nd. I don't use the bracket button myself, I prefer to manually change my exposure with the exposure compensation as you did.

3rd, looking at this scene I don't think you would have needed 6 exposures, the dynamic range isn't large enough. 2 or 3 exposures would have been enough. But, it's better to do more especially as you are learning this then to get back home and not have enough exposure range.

I need to go eat breakfast... :eek: After I will comment on the look of your image, which I will say overall looks really good. But with Critique we can offer a few different ideas or thoughts on it.
I probably didn't need six, but when I clicked from one image to the next you could see the cloud movement, and I thought using all six would give me more of that than it did. I was a little disappointed in that, but really thinking about it, might have gone into flat white clouds.
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
Hi Darcy, I think your blending went really well. This would be a good one to post unprocessed versions of maybe 3 of the raw files. Very easy to do, Just open them without any changes and downrez to 3000 wide, and save to the critique gallery. Then you can embed them here.

I would post a light, dark and middle version.
I will post 3 after breakfast!
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
These are only 1200 wide. If you uploaded directly to the post, the website automatically downsizes to 1200 wide. You need to first upload to the critique gallery then embed them here and they will keep their 300 wide size.

Second, your brackets are pretty wide and in fact the light one is good all by itself. I already made a version just from that image alone. So long as nothing is blown, on your light image there is no need to bracket.
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
oops don't know what happened
DSC_7710rez.jpg

These are only 1200 wide. If you uploaded directly to the post, the website automatically downsizes to 1200 wide. You need to first upload to the critique gallery then embed them here and they will keep their 300 wide size.

Second, your brackets are pretty wide and in fact the light one is good all by itself. I already made a version just from that image alone. So long as nothing is blown, on your light image there is no need to bracket.
I didn't think I did it right LOL. I changed my width in ps to 3000 x 1972 or something like that. Just had a feeling that was not what I was supposed to do :)
 
Last edited:

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Still at 1200. I think you are embedding it directly into the post. What you need to do is first upload the image into a gallery. To do this.

Click gallery just below the Focal World logo. Then find "add new media" in the bar below it. A window opens which has two choices.

1. Site category
2. Album.

Choose site category and under choose category, select "critique downloads"

This is the only way to download 3000 wide images.

Once it is on the critique gallery, you can then insert it into the post by selecting. The "icon that looks like a camera" it will say "media gallery embed" Now you can embed the larger image in your post.
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Just for grins, here is the 1200 bright image with a quick process to show you did not need to blend. I could make the sky darker or the rocks redder if I choose.

DSC_7708rez ben 1.jpg
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
Well how do you like that...and here I thought blending would be better :confused:. I think I was focusing on way too much that day, with bracketing, aperture, motion at the pow wow. And oooooh I get it now, next time I will go to the gallery and do it that way. Like I said, learn something new in this group every day!

So for bracketing, I should only be doing that for like say a sunset where I want to expose darker to really get the full colors of the sunset, then another shot to properly expose for maybe the shadowed mountain or lake, then another to properly expose the foreground details.
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Today cameras have so much more latitude that blending is not nearly as often required as in the past. I always expose so that nothing is blown out, and if the shadows are still too dark, you may overexpose one or more shots to use later for blending.

Good color in sky's can be had by darkening or curves or adding saturation. If nothing is blown out (overexposed) there is no need to make a darker exposure. The darker exposure may look better before processing, but the is enough information in the image to make the bright one look good.
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
I always try to expose for my highlights, but I do have a thing with going darker exposed for my sunsets. I will see if I can get the same thing via post on my next one :). Thank God I don't have to bracket all the time and blend multiples. I can just concentrate on my aperture for awhile now hahahah. I was getting brain overload I think and then I get frustrated with my shots as they are not coming out like I want them or see them. But it was a good learning experience and practice with the blending. I think when I go out, I will pick one thing to master that day of shooting instead of 5 things.
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Hey Darcy,

Here is my edit off that single medium exposed image. As Ben said, only bracket when you need to. There will be lots of tools and techniques you will learn, the secret if you will is to learn when to use them. With Bracketing, you only bracket as Ben described, when the range of light is so great you need to capture more. Even a sunset, by itself doesn't mean you need to bracket, but if you are say shooting into the sun, then odds are you would need to bracket as the sun would be so much brighter then the ground.

I don't totally like the sky In my edit, but I did crop out the brighter couple of spots in the sky as they only provided distractions in the sea of clouds

Darcy DSC_7710rez_1b.jpg
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
I love seeing the different takes on just one image, without the blending. I like you got rid of that bright spot in the cloud also. Thanks to you & Ben, for all the advice & suggestions, help. I am really learning quite a bit in here and hopefully can put it all to good use as I continue to grow with my photography. Really I have learned more in here than I have from watching vids & online classes. Though I am glad I took some online classes when I first got my DSLR, as it helped me with quite a few things also.
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
BTW Darcy, I did use blending on this image, I just used the single image to blend with. I always select the sky and adjust it separate from the ground.
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
BTW Darcy, I did use blending on this image, I just used the single image to blend with. I always select the sky and adjust it separate from the ground.
Oh I see, great trick to know :D. So did you make a copy of the image, then blend one of the layers for the sky & one for the ground? Or do it with gradient filter? So layers then are the key? Now that I know how to do masks I may try that on a single image. I am so glad you two aren't tired of me & my questions yet LOL
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
Still at 1200. I think you are embedding it directly into the post. What you need to do is first upload the image into a gallery. To do this.

Click gallery just below the Focal World logo. Then find "add new media" in the bar below it. A window opens which has two choices.

1. Site category
2. Album.

Choose site category and under choose category, select "critique downloads"

This is the only way to download 3000 wide images.

Once it is on the critique gallery, you can then insert it into the post by selecting. The "icon that looks like a camera" it will say "media gallery embed" Now you can embed the larger image in your post.
Is this how I should be doing all of my images? Click Gallery then the Site Category?
 

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Is this how I should be doing all of my images? Click Gallery then the Site Category?
The critique gallery is only for embedding large images. But you can build your own galleries in a similar fashion. You can probably figure it out with the instructions I provided, but if you need help, just message me. You can build up albums by category and then embed them later in posts.
 

Darcy Grizzle

Well-Known Member
Thank you Ben, I wasn't sure if I should be going to gallery, then pick the category & upload or create new threads each time in the different forums. I have been just going to the landscape forum then, create new thread, and upload there.
 
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