PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL - Image Blending 101

Lightning Over Adelaide - Original photos by Lotte Ebdrup (@lotsoleum)

This tutorial was inspired by the awesome work of one of my very favourite photographers on Instagram - Lotte Ebdrup (@lotsoleum) - who recently posted these three, stunning shots of lightning over Adelaide.

I felt that her lightning photographs would also look awesome as a 3-image blend, so I reached out and asked if she would be ok with me putting together a beginner-friendly tutorial on how to go about doing that. Thankfully she was on board.

So in this tutorial, I would like to teach you a simple, yet effective method of blending two or more photos together using Photoshop, in order to make a seamless and natural-looking montage.

Back in the days of film, this would be done by layering negatives over one another and hoping for the best. Luckily Photoshop has many built-in tools which make this sort of work a lot easier. However, the overall idea of "Layering" is still the same.

This is by no means the definitive method, and your results may vary depending on the kinds of photographs you choose. Indeed, this is one of many different blending styles that I use, but I feel that it's a great place to start, and it allows you to build up your skills from here.

1 - Selecting You Photographs

To start, you will need two or more photographs that you want to blend together.

You will also need a copy of Photoshop. Pretty much any version will do. I have learned this method way back in 1998 and it worked just as well back then as it does today.

My personal recommendation for selecting the right photos for blending is:

- All photographs must be shot from the same distance, angle and height, in order to minimise parallax distortion. You don't want the end result to look like a Picasso painting (or maybe you do, it's up to you).

- All photos should be of the same size. You don't want to have to resize and rescale any photographs as that may make the final result look blurry or fuzzy.

- The lighting and overall mood needs to be similar in each photograph. You can definitely get some cool and unusual results if you were to try and blend a daytime photo with one shot in the evening, but for the purpose of this tutorial, we want the end result to look as natural as possible, with all photographs looking like they were shot moments or minutes apart.

As luck would have it, Lotte's lightning photographs comfortably satisfy all of the above criteria.

2 - Opening Your Photos in Photoshop

After you've selected your photos, you need to open them in Photoshop.

You can either drag each file onto the Photoshop icon, or simply open each image using File > Open from inside the app.

In the end you should end up with each of your selected photos open inside its own tab. For this example I'm using three images:

Lightning-1.jpg,

Lightning-2.jpg, and

Lightning-3.jpg

Lightning-1, Lightning-2, and Lightning-3 open as three separate images.

Even though each image is open in its own tab, the next step is to put them all onto one Photoshop image.

If you've never used Photoshop before, the best mind metaphor is to think of each Photoshop image as being made up of one or more, clear overhead projector transparencies stacked on top of each other (see below).

Classic overhead projector. (image source: Wikipedia)

Each Photoshop 'transparency' is called a 'Layer'.

You can stack as many of these layers on top of one another as you like, allowing you to blend, erase, mask and filter each layer as needed. The goal is to control how much and which parts of each transparency are visible.

In a nutshell, if you understand Layers, you understand ninety percent of what Photoshop is all about.

3 - Preparing Images for Blending

This is where the fun begins.

I will assume that all of your selected photos are the same size and resolution. If they all came from the same camera and haven't been resized and rescaled at different resolutions over time, then you should be ok.

You can easily check the resolution of your images by going to Image > Image Size in Photoshop.

In my case, I'm using very small resolution images, where each image is 600 pixels tall, 600 pixels wide, at 72 pixels per inch.

This next step is a little tricky at first, but it will become second nature once you've done it a few times.

If you look at any of your open images in Photoshop, you should see a 'Layers' tab somewhere on the right. If you don't see it, then go to Window > Layers and it will open.

Photoshop Layers Tab.

The Layers tab displays all of the above mentioned "transparencies" that make up your photograph. Any image which has never been in Photoshop will always show a single 'Background' layer.

The goal of this tutorial is to blend three images together. This involves creating a single image which contains the layers of all three images inside it.

The way you do that is to select your main image. In my case the main image will be 'Lightning-1.jpg.

Next, I will go to all of the remaining images, and one by one, drag their 'Background' layer onto Lightning-1.jpg.

Now here's the tricky part.

The way you drag a layer from one image into another, is to drag the desired layer over the tab of your destination image (see video below).

How to drag a layer from one image and into another

With the source layer in hand, hover your mouse over the tab of the destination image, and after a second, the image will open underneath.

You will then need to drop the layer which you are holding, somewhere on top of the destination image itself.

Repeat this process for any other images that you will be using in your blend.

When you are finished, your destination image should contain its original 'Background' layer, as well as some other layers, named Layer 1, Layer 2... etc.

Destination image, with all three layers imported

The next step is to select the layers which you will want to use in your blend - in this case it's all of them.

The way to do that, is to hold down the 'Shift' key as you click on the thumbnail of each layer, until all layers have been highlighted (see above image).

Then go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers.

The Auto-Align window, where all of the magic happens.

In the window that appears, select 'Auto', and leave all other boxes unticked, as per the screenshot above.

Then click OK.

If your photos had enough elements in common, Photoshop will have moved around, resized and aligned your layers, so that any common elements and features are now perfectly over the top of one another.

You can check this by clicking the little 'Eye' icon to the left of each layer. This will hide and show that layer and expose the one underneath.

If any of your images weren't perfectly aligned at the time that they were taken - perhaps they were shot hand-held - there is a chance that one or more of your layers will have shifted in order for the alignment process to succeed.

In the case of the three Lightning photographs, the horizon in Lightning-3.jpg was a little lower than in the other two images. This has caused the edges of the final blend to be a little misaligned, as the offending layer had to be moved down in order for all three horizons to be aligned.

This is not a big issue, and it is very simple to fix by using the 'Crop' tool on the left menu.

The Crop Tool

Select the crop tool, and crop in any of the sides that look out of place.

The final step - and this is where the blending magic happens - is use the Blending Mode menu to expose the correct elements in each layer, so that the final result looks as natural as possible.

Blending Modes Menu

Click on the thumbnail of any of your layers and the Blending Mode menu will become visible.

The default Blending Mode should be 'Normal'.

Click on 'Normal' and a pull-down menu will open.

In the case of my Lightning photographs, I want the brightest parts of each layer (the lightning) to blend through, and the rest of the layers to not mix with one another. In this case I would choose 'Lighten' as the Blending Mode for each of the layers.

The trick is to play around with the various blending modes of your particular set of images and see which modes work best. There is no right or wrong answer, just what looks right to you.

If you are satisfied with the result of your blend, the final step will be to Save your image.

If you ever want to re-edit the image in the future, then you should save it as a .psd file (Photoshop file). This way you don't lose any layers, and all of your adjustments and blends are also saved.

Go to File > Save As and make sure that the Photoshop option is selected.

Then, for social media, or your phone's camera roll, go to File > Export > Save For Web and choose the JPEG option. This will create a flattened down, web-friendly, jpeg copy of your image without any layers or adjustments, but it will allow you to share your awesome blend with others.

That's it!

I hope you were able to follow along, and that your blends came out fantastic!

Feel free to tag me on Instagram @rickyzabilski with your results, and drop me a comment if you have any questions.

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Happy shooting!