Blending Photographs

Step 1:

1. The task is to take these two images and blend them together.
2. Now obviously the second image did not start like that, I've already changed the canvas size to match my first image, however that is not the important part of this tutorial.
3. We are not going to use masks to create our final image

   What is a mask? I've seen several explanations, and none of them quite make sense. Think of an real airbrush spraying through a some net curtain. The net curtain is a mask. Masks in PSP work in a similar way, but they work on all the different tools you have, which kind of pushes the analogue to the limit!

Step 2:

1. Create a new layer, call it "mask layer" to keep things clear.
2. Position it between the original (on the bottom layer) and the image to be overlaid (on the top layer).
3. At this stage you might want to turn off visibility of the two outer layers so only the mask layer is visible. This will help keep things clear.
4. Now, set the foreground colour to Black, the background to white
5. Select the fill tool, and select Linear Gradient
6. In the options dialog, set the directions to 90 degrees
7. Fill the mask layer so that looks like the example above.
8. Next select Mask, New, From Image.
9. In the dialog box set, "This Window", "Source Luminance" and "Invert Mask Data", click OK
10. You will see no change except the addition of a * in the layer name.

Step 3:

1. Now turn on visibility of the other two layers.
2. Set the mode on the top layer to "Lighten"
3. You will get the image above.
4. Now, if at this stage you are wondering why we bothered, well have an experiment.

   First, turn off visibility of the mask layer, we no longer have the same effect at all. You can also try fiddling with the merge method between the two layers, but none of these will give us the graduated effect we want to merge the two images.

5. Turn on the visibility of the mask layer before continuing.

Step 2:

1. There are still two things we need to sort out. Firstly, the mask gradient needs pushing over to the left, secondly we can see the steps in the mask layer.
2. Turn off the top and bottom layers and switch to the mask layer.
3. With the Deform tool squeeze the gradient so it only occupies the left half of the image.
4. Then, set the fill tool to plain colour and flood fill the right half with white.
5. Notice that even this fill is filtered through the mask to provide a soft gradient
6. To remove the stepping in the gradient apply some noise, 30% random
7. Then apply a strong Gaussian Blur (radius 4).
8. This has resulted in the mask shown above. It has a stronger gradient on the left but a more random flow without the obvious grey stepping.
9. Turn on visibility of the two other layers again and you have this.