Hidden Photoshop Tool for fast Exposure Blending (RAW Files included)

hello everyone welcome to another photoshop tutorial in this video i will talk a little more in detail about the apply image feature in photoshop which seems to be a rather unknown feature but it's very very helpful for a lot of things here though i do want to focus on exposure blending that means by making use of the apply image feature i will combine multiple exposures and thus increase the dynamic range of the image i'm working on so without much more talking let's start as usual before i can actually do the exposure blending we want to do the base raw adjustments for our images down here you can see the different exposures with this one being the middle one this one for the highlights with no over exposure but a lot of under exposure and we are going to use this bright image as our base image layer in photoshop since here we have all the details we need in the shadows while there is of course some overexposure by the way if you just want to see the apply image feature then i suggest to check the chapters of the video for now let's do the raw adjustments i'm going to do them on the middle ground image here and then later apply all the adjustments to the different exposures so first off i do want to change the profile to adobe landscape so we get some more saturation and you can see this also helps a bit with the darker areas then for the white balance let's see i think i'm going with the cloudy setting this will warm and everything up which is exactly what i'm aiming for since this is a golden hour shot as we're going to do some exposure blending i am not changing stuff like exposure contrast highlights and so on instead i want to head straight down there to the texture and boost it just a little bit and then i'm also increasing the vibrance just like that then we are done with the basic panel next up i do want to work on the local adjustments and as always i'm starting with the gradated filters i have added one for the top part of the sky which i want to slightly darken by bringing down the exposure perfect that's it then there are two gradated filters for the foreground and with the first one i do want to introduce some more texture [Music] and some clarity just like that and i want to use the second one which you can see has a slightly different size to bring down the temperature so we get less yellow color tones in the foreground so let's see that should look pretty good if not we can adjust it later then there is also one radial filter which i have placed over the tree in this area i do want to have some subtle glow and therefore i'm simply going to boost the blacks and drop the dehaze perfect that's it we are done with the local adjustments then all that's left to do is the color grading i'm skipping the color mixer for now i might do it later in photoshop but here i do want to apply some split toning and since that's a golden hour shot i'm also applying some golden hour light to the highlights so somewhere in the yellow range with a little less saturation though alright and let's check the mid tones again i'm going for a golden hour color tone somewhere here maybe and here again use a low saturation all right then for the shadows i want to add a little bit of color contrast so i'm going to introduce some blue tones to the shadows that should look pretty good but here i'm going to use a really low saturation perfect finally i do want to head into the calibration tab all the way down and simply drop the blue primary hue and boost the saturation here this just adds a little more red to those yellow highlights and i think this looks pretty good in most cases so then let's also sharpen this image real quick then here we have the adjustments for the first raw image so now we do want to copy those settings to the two other images therefore i'm holding down the shift key and click on the last thumbnail to select them all now right click on them and just hit synchronize settings check all and hit ok and here we have the settings on all three images now let's open them up in photoshop as i said earlier i'm going to use the brightest one as the base image on top of it i have added the middle exposure and at the very top there is the darkest exposure with all the details in the highlights i do notice some slight movement between those layers so before we can work on the exposure blending i'm going to align those layers real quick so let's select them all go to edit and select auto align layers and just hit ok now let's see how the exposure blending goes using the apply image feature first off make sure to turn off all your darker layers i will go through this layer by layer so first off i'm going to blend the middle exposure and then the dark exposure so with the middle exposure turned off i'm going to apply a layer mask and i make sure the layer mask is selected then i'm going to image and simply choose apply image i don't have to change anything here i just click ok now you can see the layer mask has changed if i alt click on it you can see the actual mask what this means is the darker parts of this layer mask will not be visible while the brighter parts will be blended with our base image so let me just turn on the middle exposure and you can immediately see we do get a way better exposed sky right there the overexposure is almost gone but we didn't lose any detail in the shadows so just take a look at the forest which just basically stays the same before and after of course you can further adjust this by working on the layer mask for example the foreground did get slightly darker which i don't want so i'm just using a black brush and i'm just brushing over the foreground to make it slightly brighter again we could also brighten up the center part a little bit we might do get some overexposure but i think that's not a big deal this actually looks better in my opinion but therefore i of course dropped the brush opacity and then i'm just carefully painting over the brighter parts of the sky okay that looks pretty good now of course there is some over exposure left but we do still have the darkest exposure so let's just repeat that step although i won't be using it for the final image keep the layer turned off apply a layer mask make sure the layer mask is selected go to image apply image and just hit ok then turn back on your layer and you will successfully blend those exposures together again you can adjust the mask in this case the image got way too dark so i want to fix that i'm just brushing over the sky here and thus i'm bringing back in some brightness and that's how you do the exposure blending using the apply image feature in photoshop as i said in the intro it's a little bit hidden in the image menu but if you use it a few times you will get used to it so if you do want to see the rest of the editing for this image feel free to stay if not i hope this was helpful but let's continue as i said i don't want to use the darkest layer since i think the overexposure right in the center behind the tree does look pretty cool so with those two images blended together really nicely i'm going to merge them next up i do want to work on the foreground a little bit since i think this needs to be brighter therefore i am going to add a new layer switch the blending mode to overlay and i'm going to use the tk panel plugin to create luminosity masks in this case i i don't want to target the shadows of the foreground i'm looking for something to target foliage just like the lights one layer let's try this one create a layer mask on our overlay layer and just use a white brush to brighten it up and you can see this actually works quite good now we did accidentally brighten up the sky of course i don't want that alright so if we want to make this effect even stronger i can simply duplicate that layer and that looks pretty cool let's merge everything and i guess i do want to add another overlay layer to dodge the foreground a bit but let's see if we can target the foliage in the foreground further [Music] i guess the mid tones would work pretty good here let's try this one and again just using a white brush here to paint over the foreground [Music] nice now with this out of the way let's merge this once more and of course i do want to apply some nice glow in the center and the bright part in the center uh actually no let's first get rid of those sensor spots i just noticed them there are a few other things i can remove from this image as well okay but now let's add the glow again i'm creating a new layer switch to blending mode to hard light however this time and i do want to apply a slightly warm color cast to the glow so let's see this should be a pretty good color tone [Music] and then let's also bring down the brush opacity of course and now i'm just adding the glow [Music] all right awesome then again let's merge those layers so one thing i don't like is the blue tone of the sky which i want to change therefore i'm going to add the hue saturation adjustment layer and in the drop down menu right here i'm going to select the blues and now i'm just playing around with the hue and i'm trying to give it a more natural looking blue tone then also i'm going to drop the saturation and maybe even the luminance alright much better now let's see if i can play around with the yellows as well and i do want to drop the green tone slightly [Music] alright nice i'm merging those layers and i do actually think i can burn the sky a little bit so i do need to apply another overlay layer and again i want to use the tk panel plug-in to select the darker parts of the sky just like that with the dark stool mask and instead of a white brush i'm going to use a black brush and i'm just adding some more darkness to the top of the sky just like that so let's merge those layers and finally let's check the neck collection plugin first off let's check the polarization effect i do think this looks pretty cool but only on the sky well let's apply it like this and let's add one more filter in this case let's check out the glamour glow effect maybe reduce the glow add back saturation okay i think that looks cool but i do want to remove the foreground from it so i'm going to add a negative control point here just like that okay let's apply it like this now i do want to apply one more vibrance adjustment layer and yeah i just want to slightly drop the vibrance for the foreground so i'm using the layer mask to paint back in saturation for the sky just like that and here we have the finished image i hope this was interesting and helpful if you have questions left feel free to ask in the comments and thank you very much for watching this video you

Channel: The Phlog Photography

Views: 13,852

Keywords: photography, photoshop tutorial, lightroom tutorial, lightroom post processing, landscape photography, landscape post processing, photoshop beginner, lightroom for beginner, the phlog photography, christian möhrle, how to edit raw photos, raw photo start to finish, adobe lightroom classic class, adobe photoshop class, photoshop apply image, exposure blending with photoshop, photoshop hdr tutorial

Id: FwSZZlCpMD8

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 23 2021