Merging two shots to gain dynamic range

[owen]

High guys. Here's an easy and quick way of getting rid of blown highlights in your shots.

Firstly shoot raw. This way you can 'develop' one underexposed shot for the highlights and one normal shot for the main part. Alternatively shoot two shots bracketed. Open both in Photoshop and copy and paste the darker image over the top of the lighter one and press CTRL - ALT and `. Once the brighter areas are selected just press the layer mask button and it's like magic.

See here for a better explanation and some pictures as examples:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=14353516

[Hlop]

Great method, Owen!

I was trying to do something similar myself with underxposed and normal shots but with HDR and didn't really like results. This way seems to be much easier and looks like it works fine

[owen]

Yep, and it saves fiddling with erasers and brushes and so on.

[losfp]

Ah, I like it! I've always had this sort of problem when taking photos of sunsets in particular. Might give it a go the next time I have to do this.

[ozczecho]

Thanks owen, being a PS CS dummy this tutorial looks good. Must try.

[Alpha_7]

I'll give this a go shortly, thanks for the tip Owen should be very handy, especially for a PP novices (like myself)