I tried using Michael's "blending" approach for combining two images (one light, one dark) together in Photoshop CS. Followed the instructions to the letter, and tried twice. The composite image that results is just a duplicate of the dark image. In other words, it's not working. Anybody have any suggestions? Thanks in advance...
Here are the steps I took:
Put both images onscreen at the same time. Select the dark frame and press Command-A to select the whole thing. Press Command-C to copy it. Close that picture, as you no longer need it.
Select the light frame and press Command-V to paste the dark frame into it.
Starting with having done the pasting of the dark image on the light one, add a Layer Mask. This is done by clicking on the second icon on the lower left of the Layers palette. You will now see a white rectangle next to the image on the Layer 1 layer. (See Figure #2).
Click on the background layer on the palette and the press Command-A to select the whole image. Press Command-C, copying it to the clipboard. Now hold down the Option key and click on the white mask rectangle on the Layer 1 palette.
The whole image will now turn white. Next, press Command-V to paste the contents of the clipboard onto the white mask. You will now see a B&W mask image. With the B&W mask displayed go to Filter / Blur / Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to about 40 pixels. Click on the Background Layer and you're done. (Thanks to George DeWolfe of CameraArt's magazine for bringing this technique to my attention.)
Oh yes. With this technique you may want to select the background layer and add an appropriate curve to brighten up the dark area a bit prior to flattening the layers.
