How to CLEANLY Blend 3 Exposures in Photoshop (Landscape Workflow)

[@andreasbuecker]

Such a valuable tutorial! THX Jimmy:) Btw: so happy with RayaPro and guy´s: come on and buy Jimmie´s panel, it´s worth every penny :)

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Hehe, thank you kindly Andreas :)

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Hey Jonathan, thanks for purchasing Raya Pro. Did you purchase Mastering Raya Pro too? As with any exposure blending panel, we have to learn what exposure blending is, how to prepare our images for blending, and how to overcome the most common challenges. That is why I created the course.

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Hi there, Why not go through the Digital Blending again, experimenting with the images of yours that you feel are flat. In particular, follow the tutorials from video 9. Instead of editing in Lightroom, take your exposures into ACR and do exactly as I do with matching and pre-masking. This will fix the problems you have experienced. And remember that once the exposure blending part of our workflow is finished, we then need to proceed with the rest of our workflow, adding curves layers, dodging and burning et.c to give it life, just like in the image used in this video.

[@mohammadmanjra1574]

Rogier Broekhuis you choose exposure bracketing in the camera

[@KevinMoorePhotography]

Just bought Raya Pro 2 today. A series of 3 images that were a week from deletion are now going in my portfolio. It's a game changer.

[@GregWallis]

To use an old English phrase, you really know your onions! Superb stuff. And your Geordie accent is always a pleasure.

[@megacube5482]

best landscape editing tutorials on youtube

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Appreciate that

[@frank7261]

Thank you Jimmy Mcintyre for making a tutorial using my raw photographs shot by more than 10 years old Canon 5D with 24-105mm F4L USM lens. In the field, I knew my camera's dynamic range is very limited in one exposure, therefore I took tons of exposure bracketing from -2EV, -1EV, 0EV, 1EV, and 2EV. But the problem is when I get back home and watching those exciting raw images cluttered here and there, I don't have a good idea to work on them systematically so that the captured scene and digital information can represent what I have seen in the field. This tutorial is a great one and shows how to do it CLEANLY!!! Enjoy my fellow photography friends!

[@mahernajm]

thank you so much Jimmy . this great tutorial

[@tomasrodriguezvillegas6719]

I just upgraded to Raya Pro 2.0, can't believe how useful it can be, although I still have to try it with new shots. I'm flying over to Patagonia next week so I can't wait to put all this knowledge into practice. Thanks for sharing Jimmy, your panel is worth every penny as Andreas said.

[@stepitup5409]

Jimmy, I just landed on your youtube site. Man I gotta say that was about the best free gift I got this year. In thanks Im going to buy the Raya pro version. There are many things you can add to your workflow in photoshop but I think this is perhaps the best Ive ever seen. Ill be following your youtube channel and training. Thanks so much!

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Thank you kindly and I'm glad you like the Easy Panel. You will love Raya Pro 3.0 which comes out in February and is free to all existing Raya Pro users.

[@stepitup5409]

Thanks Jimmy, Ive got to have it! Now Im just trying to figure out what extras Im going to add to the purchase. Every time I look at one of your youtube videos I seem to want to add more training to it. Decisions!

[@1QKGLH]

Wait what!? You have software you could sell me that will do the job, but you're willing to show me how to do it without the software you could otherwise sell me? You sir, are a good man. That's enough to make me purchase the software. What a stand-up guy!

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Fairness is a rare commodity in the business world, so I try to do my part :) Thanks for purchasing Raya Pro.

[@franmol01]

yet another super tutorial... cheers Jimmy.

[@FrisodenBoer]

Thanks Jimmy for Raya Pro 2.0 and Instamask. What a great tool and timesaver in Photoshop. It took me a while but after watching the 'mastering Raya Pro' at least 20 times :-) (and feeling stupid more than once) It finally clicked. For me the Precision Masks are the way to go! Thanks again and keep up the great work!

[@souravzzz]

Thanks Jimmy for showing how to do it without RayaPro. Even though I own it I sometimes like doing it manually.

[@DeLaRic]

thanks very much to show us your workflow. with and without your tool. very cool tutorials.

[@DCFotographs]

I usually cant sit through a full tutorial. But you did very well here and I learned a lot. I will get Raya Pro 2 and definitely try it out

[@danroh001]

I swear, you're like Bob Ross as a photographer. I can totally hear you say "Looks like we've made a mistake here and over saturated, but that's ok, its a happy mistake. We'll make this photo very happy. I love it when sky is colorful, makes everything happy". So much optimism, hahah. Great video!

[@jakeskatesgood]

So helpful, you're one of the few I've seen on youtube who don't totally abuse the image. Thank you!

[@frankhe4832]

Fantastic！ The before and after has huge difference. WoW

[@robm509]

Jimmy, your tutorials are great - really clear and easy to follow and they have reignited my interest in Photography. I have just upgraded to Raya Pro 2. I used it for the first time today and it is a fantastic. improvement. I look forward to using it a lot more. Thanks!

[@nickmorton9760]

Thanks Jimmy - terrific as always. Time to get my head around all the new features in V2 of the panel.

[@laurent7368]

It's so nice and easy with Raya Pro ! Thank you Jimmy !

[@Eshcm]

One word ..... Legend

[@TabletPro]

just purchased raya pro and so excited to try it out! Thanks Jimmy!

[@kozz1984]

Jimmy is the rain man of photoshop

[@Brutalfilm]

By far the best tutorial about Image Blending ive seen so far!!!

[@2candan1]

My favourite video of yours I think! Finally bought the panel and am keen to start using it.

[@jessesworld3139]

Great video! Thanks Jimmy!

[@adventuresofjandk]

Your presentation style is fantastic

[@richardtierney7724]

Just installed RayaPo version 2... Utterly brilliant :-) Jimmy is a genius.. Thank you so much Jimmy looking forward to learning and using it....

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

That's great to hear Richard.

[@beatsntoons]

Hi Jimmy. Just wanted to say thanks for your videos. I've learned so much from you, and I've still got so much more to learn. I'll be picking up Raya Pro after my next pay-day. Keep up the fantastic work. Your images are stunning, and you're a great teacher. Cheers

[@leanderhoefler7054]

Thanks for the useful tips, Jimmy. I Always enjoy your CJ videos a lot!

[@boldor900]

Great work Jimmy i have learn a lot from youre tutorials! Raya Pro is a great help.

[@YuvalAloni]

Thank you Jimmy for a great tutorial !

[@Uncle.Rico.84]

Best one yet! Thank you so much for this Jimmy!

[@weijielian5968]

easy but high effects.thank you for tutorials！

[@spinjam2]

Fantastic work Jimmy, inspiring.

[@BradTruxell]

Another excellent tutorial here, Jimmy. I learn a new tip/trick each time I watch a new one of yours. I have two questions that I can't seem to find an answer for and I hope you can clarify... Do you ever add vibrance/saturation to your landscapes? I feel like I have to add a significant amount or my photos look dull. Also, can you clarify sharpening? Do you sharpen only when you upload to the web or do you also add sharpening to your "master" file? Thanks again!

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Hi Brad, I don't have any hard and fast rules for vibrancy/saturation. Sometimes I add a little of both, sometimes only increase the saturation of certain colours, sometimes I reduce saturation. If the scene needs a lot of saturation and is extremely flat, I probably wouldn't publish it. There's only so much we can do by increasing saturation and vibrancy. For sharpening, I literally never sharpen the full size image. Since they are all show on tripods, and manually focused, they are sharp enough. But I do sharpen for the web, but I tend to be conservative about that too. I hope that helps. Jimmy

[@BradTruxell]

Jimmy McIntyre Thank you for the detail reply, Jimmy! Those were my thoughts, I just needed confirmation 😃 Since I use a Sigma lens, it's not as sharp as other Nikon glass, so I feel like a sharpening layer is needed for me. I have been trying this technique in which I create a "darks" layer mask and apply sharpening there. It seems to add a much subtler effect than applying globally. If you're still looking for tutorial ideas, I'd love to see your methods on injecting vibrancy and saturation correctly. Thanks again for all the great material. I'll be installing RP 2.0 this week (haven't had the chance to update the old one yet).

[@MeganMooney248]

This was a very helpful video! I am excited to try this out. You made it very easy to understand and you explained everything so well. Thank you for this tutorial.

[@MrGieringer]

love your videos, i am learning so much every time

[@Reidzandbelt]

New to your channel so I'm not sure if you have done this before, but maybe you could do all the edits in Raya Pro in one go. Then do it without Raya Pro just to show how much quicker your panel is :)

[@MaMunarriz]

Really good tutorial as always.

[@extrablass]

Very nice video . I learned a lot

[@patgristi6458]

Hi Jimmy! Congratulations for this tutorial! It encompasses lots of techniques very useful and it demonstrates efficently how to use them, all that in one shot! Pretty well done as usually and great job indeed.

[@JoeyBumbum]

Super great tut as always Jimmy, thank you!!

[@dasilvajohnful]

Great! This is my first tutorial on photoshop, i like it.

[@NabilAbdulla07]

One big like Jimmy! As always, useful tutorials.

[@ZacharyDoehler]

So helpful, thank you Jimmy!

[@nedjatnuhi]

Great tutorial! Thank you for sharing! I'm using RayaPro since two weeks but i like that you are also showing it how to do it without. Thanks Jimmy :)

[@vilfheram]

Thanks as always Jimmy, you'r an inspiration for me. Regards from Spain.

[@Colmkeating15]

Thanks so much again for a great tutorial. Been watching these for years and this is one of the best!

[@Chreeeys]

Epic Tutorial, love all of your videos!

[@mmlips]

Awesome! Thanks Jimmy.

[@kenhinkley4894]

Thanks for all of your work. Quick question, what is an option for blending well if I was shooting on a windy day and in each exposure I have tree branches swaying in different directions?

[@italiansnake]

I love your tutorials 👍🏻

[@johnguillaume5919]

Love to see the process you go through. I’m going to buy your software. Happy New Year

[@katarinajankovic2165]

Great tutorial, thank you very much!

[@majamagdamarcin]

Very useful, thank a lot!

[@es0terra]

Hey Jimmy- following your technique here has been so helpful. Thanks. I am getting ghosting in my image because the clouds were moving fast between shots. Is there a way to fix this? Align image option is grayed out. Is this the case because I am working with smart objects? How to fix?

[@Tiritibambix]

Wow, what a great tutorial ! And thank you for explaining for those of us who can't purchaise raya pro :) I have a question though: how do I align my 3 exposures as they are smart objects ?

[@samuelbettinelli3059]

select them all ,click on image and auto align

[@Tiritibambix]

Thanks for answering. But this works with layers, not smart objects : /

[@robcpwoodturner]

great tutorial as always 👍

[@navwelchh]

amazing tutorial, thx Jimmy!!

[@0619Octupi]

Jimmy, I have a bunch of bracketed shots from a trip to Shanghai. I've tried to get good results using RP2 and get decent results. I'd share the raw files with you if you wanted to see if they'd be a good set for a tutorial.

[@atulhaldankar7143]

You are legendary!

[@michivanhalen7086]

Great as always, thanks a lot!

[@JuanCristobal]

Thanks god you didn´t forget to point out that little lens dust hahaha. Thanks again BTW

[@paulwatson1977]

that has helped alot! thanks great video

[@Doeniel02]

you are like the bob ross of photography^^

Wow, crazy good!

[@anthonyb97]

So is there an ideal in taking photos. 1 under exposed 1 correctly exposed and 1 over exposed? Are you only changing exposure or also shutter speed?

[@robmontagna]

Very useful, thank you!

[@zeitraffer851]

THX for the information : ) Have a nice day

[@HollyVanHart]

💜 Excellent! 💖 😍 🌟

[@roamwithlove988]

Hi Jimmy, I have just started to learn a bit of Photoshop and I am having trouble with a landscape photo, specifically with reducing noise and/or blur (I don't even know which!). Are you interested in touching it up for your channel or to maybe give me some tips on what to do? Lidewij

[@d4nn1100]

Dope tutorial, thanks for the info!

[@praveeng9141]

Thank you thank u sir for this tutorial

[@ahmedsameer2]

thank you jimmy < you are agood man

[@maktabalain]

thank you Jimmy

[@haremsewaisi]

Great as always. one question please, how can I open all the layers in photoshop as smart objects? I tried but I can open only one layer as smart object!

[@bobincdas]

Amazing work ! :)

[@kijel01223]

very useful~thanks Jimmy

[@kozz1984]

Jimmy such a nice chap

[@valkyh4548]

Jimmy- I'm trying to use Raya Pro 2 on this.... I understand you can't auto-align layers until you rasterize them first... But I see you 1. Open as objects 2. then Stack 3. then align. I can't align without rasterizeing first. If I rasterize first then later on I can't go back to each exposure as you do in Camera Raw to adjust color/tone because I loose the smart object. What I am missing here in your steps? Thanks!

[@panosadgr1]

Hello mr McIntyre! I'm not a Raya pro user and I would like to ask your help. After opening the 3 bracketed shots from ACR how can i align them in case they are shot handheld? I open the menu and go to the auto align layer option and it doesn't work. It is inactive. Then I would like you to tell me when i make the stack which image do i place on which? Do I use the brighter and place the other shots on it, or do i put the middle exposure in the middle and place the brighter and darker on it?

[@dreyUni]

What if I need to blend three exposures and the subject is not so static as above sample? It is very common situation - clouds can move really fast, leaves on the trees can move rapidly if the wind blows... Most of HDR processing programs deals poorly with such scenarios, creating either visible ghosts or/and areas where noise is boosted dramatically. I shoot spherical panoramas and face the situation described very often. it would be priceless to find a better solution than manually erasing ghosts - it is not precise and time consuming. Bought Raya Pro seeking for better ways to deal with the task.

[@serankko]

Very useful video, thank you very much! Non-Raya related question! what his the brand/model of your desktop chair? looks very cool

[@escapiststupor]

does it work when the exposure aren't exactly taken at the same spot? With minor shift I mean, is PS able to detect the edges and somehow blend them together?

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

You'll need to align the layers first, otherwise the blend won't work.

[@2candan1]

I have a question about how you would tackle exposure blending in photoshop when you also want to do a panorama? I quite often use my 50mm lens and stitch several shots because I like the compression I can get between foreground and background, whilst still taking in all of a scene. The trouble for me is that once I've blended some images manually (or using Raya pro) the resulting Tiff files are gigantic and photoshop has refused to work with them when trying to then stitch a pano several times. The other thing I'm wondering is how can you get a consistent exposure blend between each of your pano frames so that they can be stitched without variations in colour/tone etc? Is this something you ever do?

[@mikoulouandroid1930]

thank you so much ! great vidéo l'île always, chers from France !

[@ladislavesterka125]

hi, how you will do it when there are moving trees in the wind? Thanks!

[@thetunacan3247]

Great video I subbed.... Thinking heavy on Raya Pro?

[@kennyt6205]

All this can only be done if you have photos shot in multiple exposures, right? I have a Nikon D3300. Is there a way to take multiple exposure photos with Nikon D3300?

[@davebhianco4748]

hay jimmy thanks so much for teaching us..btw how about blending photoshop for architecture? interior and exterior.., i'm planning to shot with this method.. but honestly that was no one everybody in youtube share.. except thomas brigantino using this method with lumenzia or blending manually with PS.., would you teach how to blend with raya or manual blending photoshop? in color chanell, please i'm very curious..because i have a plan to buy blending software but no one to share architecture blending with luminosity.., actually i really like your software because simple and easy to blend ( Raya pro) but i'm not really sure when work it, because seems like more easy to use for landscape photography, i made my playlist hdr in my youtube just exclusively from your tuts from begining, just to learn how to blend with luminosity.., i have a plan to shot interior and exterior with flash but i think it's too difficult because in big room and large exterior would be hard to light painting, so my decision is blending with manual blending or luminosity? but i don't find to blend with luminosity in right things.., would you help me jimmy..?? Thanks before.. i know you are a good person to gift anyone who want to learn in education... sory for my bad english.. i'm from indonesia.. best regards :)

[@aarmfida572]

Thanks man 🙏

[@gmauleons]

Hi Jimmy, i have the Raya Pro, i have a question do you use +2 , 0 -2 ? or +1 0 -1?

[@MarkSwifty]

@Jimmy, can this flow be achieved in Lightroom?

[@scoopin3843]

Hi Jimmie, When I try to auto blend dark i get the error " Could not complete the command because of a program error". Please help. Thanks

[@nsbancroft]

Jimmy I am unable to get this to work. I'm attempting to blend three images. I'm able to use the autoblend dark button for my middle layer but when I go to use the auto blend dark button for my dark layer I get an error that says the "Make" command is not available. Any advice?

[@marclorence8742]

Hey Jimmy, another great video as always - Thank you for the great content ;) Also, has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Elijah Wood? You two could be brothers!

[@JimmyMcIntyre]

Thanks. I havent' had that one before. I have had Joaquin Phoenix before :)

[@MikeHeller]

Jimmy, when I open images as smart objects I can't "auto align layers" and the Raya function doesn't work either. I had a little movement between frames, how can I align my smart objects before blending?

[@janorszulik6429]

You cant, you cant do local per pixel modification or wraping on smart objects, they are not rasterized. If you want to align RAW data you need much more powerful software that can align images with higher bit precision.

[@jacobrichards8359]

I have some good ones from a trek through Sedona if you're interested! As always, great work.

[@davidsmithson9236]

If they were "good ones", why would they need an app to enhance them? You could try to improve your photography, instead of computer skills. Try it, it's fun. It is too easy to fall into the lazy "I'll fix it in post later" mentality. Walk swiftly away from the dark-side, we will welcome you back. Photography should be fun, NOT like a day at the office! Best of luck, and throw some serendipity into your photo outings.

[@frankhe4832]

thank you so much！amazing

[@gavvvvvinrocks]

Hi Jimmy, whenever I use this method of blending I've noticed that it causes noticeable banding. Is there any way to prevent this?

[@kevinkillsit]

I've only had issues with banding when using 'Silent shutter' make sure that are using the mechanical shutter when exposing.