Multi-shot composition query

[cthomps4]

Hello!

My name is Carol and I head up a Photo Club in Indianapolis, Indiana...USA. We have 194 members (on the books)...but probably about 50-60 who are fairly active. Our club (all volunteers) offers educational classes/meetings for beginners, middle of the road, and possibly for more advanced later. We do photo shoots/outings/events/exhibits and contests. A lot of interacting and hands on with our learning. We chose "Cambridge In Colour" to be our point of reference several months ago and just did get started with a 6-month educational program. We changed some of our website contests...one being "Photo Challenge".

Each month, there will be a new challenge. For the month of March, the person who came up with the challenge is calling it "Multi-exposure composition – 2 images blended into one". I thought he was talking about HDR...but he says,

"I really was NOT aiming for HDR with the multi-shot composition. Yes, for some combining images could be done in camera (with less control) and others would likely composite certain elements from one pic into another in post. In my opinion HDR is a very specialized type of processing and usually composite of multiple exposures of the same scene. You can fake HDR on just a single image. I would not trade HDR for a 2-image composition for the category. I can see someone putting a person shot at one location into another environment. Or dropping in a moon on a scene where the moon wasn't available, or simply creating something surreal with a texture added to a sky, or how about a disproportionate element- a man standing on a Coke can. I'm sure if you time the composite/muti-exposure category with an education session it would aid those who may be less clear on what direction to take. Does this help flesh it out more? I didn't throw out my ideas with an exact, strict definition. The expectation was that you would take what you wanted and shape the idea into a category that made sense.

I'm still befuddled on what he wants us to do and was looking at your site for one reference where I could direct our members re this. I'm quite the amateur myself and not able to answer this; I want our folks to rely on your site when in doubt and to enhance their learning experiences. Can you help me out on this one??? My "category" person is not available...

Please help!!!

[Donald]

Carol

First of all - On the question you pose about what your club member might be meaning.

Have a look here at Frank's first entries in his 2012 Project 52 thread. This may along the sort of track that is being thougth about.

Secomd thing - Hello and welcome. Delighted to see you on here at CiC. I hope you enjoy it and build up to be a long-term active member of the forum.

And, by the way, so that you don't continue to get people asking you what your proper name is, because most us use that on here, you can go to Edit Profile and enter your proper name under 'Real Name'. Then it will appear underneath your Username in all your posts. You can also enter your location so that it does the same, just as in my details alongside this message. Then we all know where everyone is in the world.

[cthomps4]

It seems that he has done that in PhotoShop. I have PhotoShop Elements 10, but not learned to utilize that well yet. Can this be done with more simple PP...such as Photo Plus X3???

[Dave Humphries]

It seems that he has done that in PhotoShop. I have PhotoShop Elements 10, but not learned to utilize that well yet. Can this be done with more simple PP...such as Photo Plus X3???

Hi Carol,

I am going to transfer this Q&A bit to the Post Processing forum in a new thread (from the New Member thread) as we're not going to have as many people see it here, so you may miss out on some PP X3 user replies.

In an attempt at an answer, basically any PP program that can do layers (so PSE 10 could, but I have no idea about X3) should be able to do this. For your members on a budget, GIMP (free) is the answer.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

I'm still befuddled on what he wants us to do and was looking at your site for one reference where I could direct our members re this. I'm quite the amateur myself and not able to answer this; I want our folks to rely on your site when in doubt and to enhance their learning experiences. Can you help me out on this one??? My "category" person is not available...

Please help!!!

Hi Carol,

I think you have 'fallen into a hole' with this.

For our Themed challenges, which I run, I deliberately try to not get involved in discussion of detail, even with the person suggesting the theme, and certainly not by suggesting what it means (even though you may think it helps people), because it may stifle creativity.

I would have just announced it as "Multi-exposure composition – 2 images blended together" and left it at that.

There are many ways to 'blend' two images;
by exposure and tone mapping (aka HDR)
by focus stacking
by 'view stacking' (aka panoramic)
by 'time stacking' (This was Frank's Project 52 idea that Donald linked to above)
by compositing two different subject pictures (as your originator suggested)
etc.

Does that help?