So I've been inundated with requests for a video or tutorial on exposure blending. I've literally been asked by like, three people.
As my full on exposure blending tutorial is still a ways away from being finished, I thought I'd do a quick and dirty video tutorial and basic write up on how I exposure blend.

So, here it is... [best viewed in HD].

Like I said, quick and dirty.

If you want a more detailed explanation of the process, hit the Read More button, if not, go about your business.

So you wanna read more huh? So be it.
This is the full write up on how I did it...

For this shot, I used two seperate RAW files, both shot, one after each other, one stop apart.

The base exposure, the general exposure was 15 seconds, where as the details exposure was 30 seconds.

The camera was on a tripod and the camera was set to bracket one stop over.
Its crucial the camera doesn't move between exposures.

Both exposures were processed in Lightroom.
The white balance stayed the same between.

The base exposure was developed to look as standard as possible, where as the details exposure was developed to reveal as much detail in the rocks as possible, without over exposing.

Both exposures were exported from Lightroom as 16bit TIF files, using the AdobeRGB.

Both exposures were selected in Adobe Bridge and dragged into Photoshop.

In the video I'm using Photoshop CS5, but any version of Photoshop CS will work. I originally processed this shot on CS3, back in the day.

Once open in Photoshop, I drag the details layer onto the base layer. You can work the other way round but it means more to do.

With the details layer selected, click the Add Layer Mask button, the grey square with the white circle in it in the Layers pallet, then with the layer mask selected, hit CTRL+I to invert the mask, hiding the layer.

If you don't have the Layers pallet visible, go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All in the menu bar.

Once your details layer has its layer mask added and inverted, its time to start the blending.

Select the brush tool, and select a large, 300-500px, soft edged brush.
With your foreground colour is set to white, start to paint over the area you want to expose.

If a large section of the area you want to expose is isolated from the edges, set the brush exposure to 100% to cut down the work.
Start to lower the exposure as you work closer to the edges, for a softer, more gradual blend.

When you start getting towards the edges, zoom right in and slowly finesse the brush.
Its better to work with a low exposure opacity, 15-30%, and to slowly build up the blends on the edges, to give a more natural fade between the exposures.

If you've gone over any of the edges, switch your foreground colour to black, and slowly start work over the outsides of the edges with your brush.

To set your foreground and background colours to black and white, hit D on your keyboard.
To switch between them, press X.

Once you've exposed your details through the layer mask, its time to adjust the opacity of the layer to give a more natural feel.

In the layers pallet, select your details layer and drop the opacity to 0%.
Slowly start to drag the opacity back up till it the details look natural against the base exposure.
The ammount will depend on your own shot.

And thats the basics of exposure blending!
The rest of the video is me running my usual processing techniques.
Levels on each of the layers, base and foreground.
Curves to adjust the over all contrast, and finishing off with some Dodging and Burning using curves layers.
After that its a case of some sharpening.
I normally use Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen on a new layer.

To merge all your layers into one, press CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E.
This will create a layer with everything merged together.

Once I've applied your sharpening, I lower the opacity of the sharpening layer down to about 85%, as I'm prone to over sharpening.

Then I merge everything down and save the image as a 16bit TIF file in a seperate folder.
And thats basically it...

I hope some of you can find use for this.
Any questions, leave a comment or email me.

Thanks for watching and reading,

TTFN,
Matt.