I have used for a long time an action to blend two images with different exposures for improved dynamic range based on a technique that was described on this site at
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...-blending.shtml (under "The Layer Mask").
That action ("dynamicblending") can be found in the action folder
http://www.terragalleria.com/tmp/dynamicblend.atn To try it, you need to have two images of the same scene with different exposures.
I have found it to work very well, and I prefer it to HDR in most cases. It is hereby offered for free to anybody.
Recently, I have tried to modify that action to add an additional step so that the two images would be automatically aligned, which is useful if the camera shifted slightly between the two exposures, something that often happens with all but the sturdiest tripod and head.
Problem is that when the modified action ("dynamicblendingalign") is played, the step "select current channel" (which I recorded by option-clicking on the mask icon) does work: the mask is not selected.
I have inserted a stop here, before the next step ("Paste"). If the mask was selected, you'd see a white image, but on my system, it is not. As the result, the following step "paste" creates a third layer, instead of pasting into the mask.
However, when the all the action steps are executed manually (for instance while recording the action), the mask was selected. Also, after the "stop", if I option-click the mask, the mask is also selected. That's what I do now as a workaround, but I'd like to understand why it is not working in the action.
Can someone help me figure out why "select current channel" does not do the right thing in the second action ? Or is it only a problem with my system ?
Thanks
