Fireworks blending help

[A_S]

Hi all

I am still non the wiser at some of these amazing fireworks photos I see! No smoke, crisp details, lovely exposed foregrounds... Then I look at mine... utter Sh*te if I'm honest! Looking for some help blending in photoshop

Here are 2 I took this evening. Not an inspiring foreground unfortunatly and ramping the ISO up or dropping the F number and recording more light than in the second image just made the lights look far too bright, over exposed the buildings and exposed the smoke.. looked terrible...

So i was hoping to blend one where I had a fairly decent foreground exposure with one of my darker sky images which hid the smoke and captured some of the detail in the firework...

Just wondering what the best way to do this because manually trying to blend with a layer mask gives a big halo around the trees.

My current thoughts are that there must be a blending mode that allows me to do this? Alternativly I could do the old school technique of trying to blow the highlights and darken the shaddows to creaste a psudo layer mask and then select and mask it.... but I am sure there must be more "modern" and accurate methods than that?

Foreground image:





sky:

 

[Deleted member 95743]

Hi all

I am still non the wiser at some of these amazing fireworks photos I see! No smoke, crisp details, lovely exposed foregrounds... Then I look at mine... utter Sh*te if I'm honest! Looking for some help blending in photoshop

Here are 2 I took this evening. Not an inspiring foreground unfortunatly and ramping the ISO up or dropping the F number and recording more light than in the second image just made the lights look far too bright, over exposed the buildings and exposed the smoke.. looked terrible...

So i was hoping to blend one where I had a fairly decent foreground exposure with one of my darker sky images which hid the smoke and captured some of the detail in the firework...

Just wondering what the best way to do this because manually trying to blend with a layer mask gives a big halo around the trees.

My current thoughts are that there must be a blending mode that allows me to do this? Alternativly I could do the old school technique of trying to blow the highlights and darken the shaddows to creaste a psudo layer mask and then select and mask it.... but I am sure there must be more "modern" and accurate methods than that?

Foreground image:

View attachment 373361



sky:

View attachment 373360

Place the dark image on top of the light image - I increased the exposure of the dark image to make it lighter - and then select a blending mode that gives the effect that you are after. If you hover the cursor over the blending mode it will preview the effect.

 

[A_S]

Thanks, I'll give it a go - i do want get rid of the firework in the background photo as well though, and just take the better exposed trees and foreground!

 

[Deleted member 95743]

Thanks, I'll give it a go - i do want get rid of the firework in the background photo as well though, and just take the better exposed trees and foreground!

You need to place the SKY image on top of the the FOREGROUND image.


Then you need to increase the exposure of the SKY image to bring out the colour and detail to the firework.


Then add a layer mask to the SKY image, set it to white, and then with a black paint brush paint over the grassy area at the bottom of the picture.

 

[A_S]

Thanks - yes I know how to mask - it’s just that doing it that way I get halos around the trees - I am looking for a more accurate way to mask the trees or blend the sky in!

 

[Deleted member 95743]

Thanks - yes I know how to mask - it’s just that doing it that way I get halos around the trees - I am looking for a more accurate way to mask the trees or blend the sky in!

Remove the firework from the sky in the FOREGROUND image using CONTENT-AWARE FILL.

Place the SKY image on top of the FOREGROUND image.

Select a BLENDING MODE that gives the best result.

Adjust the EXPOSURE of the SKY image.

 

[A_S]

Thanks - that’s what I am intending to do - I just don’t know enough about blending modes hence the question - what are my options? What are the best blending modes to try etc?

I mask all the time for sunsets aurora ans Milky Way but don’t usually have to deal with such a contrast between the images at the blend edges - so any advice is really helpful

 

[swanseamale47]

Youtube a video on layer blending modes, theres probably one for fireworks if you search, theres a few different options in the blending modes that can be used to tweak the setting as well.

 

[A_S]

Youtube a video on layer blending modes, theres probably one for fireworks if you search, theres a few different options in the blending modes that can be used to tweak the setting as well.

Possible but I am not really one for watching youtube would rather read a text based explination to be honest! I find a lot of these youtube tutorials have a lot of filler and take about 50% longer than they should!

Anyway, this is the best I could do.... manually blending... but you can still see a halo of light above the top of the trees and the top of the trees is noticably darker than the rest of the trees, so top of trees too dark and sky above them too light..... Not great images anyway tbh even if the blending was good. Must do better would be my sumation!

 

[A_S]

Funny the foreground on these looks much darker than in windows!