Bright Windows Part II

Another variant of taking the best part of two differently exposed but perfectly registered interior shots is not blending the two images like I talked about yesterday but actually using only the two best parts of the two shots. That is use only the windows from the shot with correctly exposed windows and use only the interior from the shot with correctly expose interior.

This is done by placing the two shots in layers that are perfectly registered (shift-drag the interior shot on to the window shot in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements). Then selecting the windows on the top shot and erasing the windows from the top layer letting the correctly exposed windows show through from the lower layer. The result is shown above.

I like this result better than the blending result I showed yesterday. What determines when you can use this technique is how difficult it is to select the windows. This example works because selecting the windows is not difficult. However, you can imagine a window with a complicated plant sitting in front of the window that would make window selection much more difficult.