Hand Photo Blending

Lately there are a lot of stunning photos posted here that were hand blended. I especially love
John Williams' Day's Ember posted on 09/15/10. I'd like to learn to do it, too. Would you guys recommend some books or tutorial materials about hand blending? Or would you recommend someone who offers such classes or seminars?

Thanks,
Bill from SD

I've always thought that David Clapp's tutorial on Exposure Blending Basics was a great start.

Younes Bounhar wrote a guest post for my blog about exposure blending. His method is quite simple and very effective. Younes Bounhar's exposure blending tutorial.

John Williams has an article on this site about his blending technique.

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0210/jw0210-1.html

Gary.

http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0210/jw0210-1.html

Todd has me trained

In addition to my article, Richard Bernabe wrote an NPN article the following month on blending in Photoshop Elements. Richard's article works for Photoshop as well, and similar to the above links works more on a principle of a wider transition, whereas my approach uses a more narrow transition.

Both techniques have their place and work well, depending on the image. In general, the wider transition is quicker to create and works better when you can't get a zone of overlap between the two photos. Narrow transition blending is much more time consuming and requires the photos to match at the transition, but can give more natural results in many situations.

I prefer the results I get with narrow transition blending when possible. In photos with extreme dynamic range such as Day's Ember I often use a combination of the two; I use mostly narrow transition blends, but use wider transitions for the brightest area of the photo.

Thank you guys for your responses and the great info. John I have read your article. It's very helpful. I may have more questions later and need your advice. Again I love your photos and thank you very much.

Bill in SD

No problem, happy to answer any questions I can. Definitely start with something simple, although very rewarding in the long run it takes a bit of experience to get the hang of. (For depth of field blending, there's a bit more info in this thread.)

Thank you John. I really appreciate it.

Bill in SD