multi-exposure and digital

"jeecee" wrote in message

Hi all

I’ve be a photographer for more than 30 years and now I’m into digital (D70) for the first time; I’m trying to duplicate an effect that I did with a standard camera. I exposed the same frame with up to 64 exposures and now I’m starting to see what the digital world has in store for me.

Curious – what are you trying to do with all those exposures on one frame?

Curious – what are you trying to do with all those exposures on one frame?

If you do it just right you can get some interesting impressionistic effects … here are some examples from Freeman Patterson, using film …. if interested in learning more he has an excellent book out titled "Photo Impressionism and the Subjective Image" …

http://www.freemanpatterson.com/prints/impressionism1.htm http://www.freemanpatterson.com/images/prints/photo_impressi onism1/20.jpg

Bill

"jeecee" wrote in message

Hi all

I’ve be a photographer for more than 30 years and now I’m into digital (D70) for the first time; I’m trying to duplicate an effect that I did with a standard camera. I exposed the same frame with up to 64 exposures and now I’m starting to see what the digital world has in store for me.

I made 8 exposures and then opened them in PhotoShop; I
copied them in the same file and did an alignement (vertical center-horizontal center) and put all the layers in "multiply" state.

There are, broadly speaking, traditionally two methods that are used in photography.
Either one shoots correctly exposed subjects against a black background, and by multiple non-overlapping exposures of the same frame, creates a composition or one records a motion sequence in a single frame. Or one shoots multiple overlapping exposures on the same frame but, because exposures add up, each individual exposure is reduced in exposure value to avoid overexposing the composite frame.

If that is what you want to mimic, you need to either use a "Lighten" layer blending mode if you have black backgrounds (also works great on fireworks) and non-overlapping images, or you need to "Add" the exposures (Image|Apply image…, and Add the RGB channels, with an opacity to compensate for the weight per image and avoid over"exposure").
You can also combine only the R, G or B channel of different shots of the same subject, and thus mimic the effect of combining e.g. three R, G and B filtered exposures.

Bart

In article <4295b1db$0$143$>, Bart van der Wolf
wrote:

"jeecee" wrote in message

Hi all

I’ve be a photographer for more than 30 years and now I’m into digital (D70) for the first time; I’m trying to duplicate an effect that I did with a standard camera. I exposed the same frame with up to 64 exposures and now I’m starting to see what the digital world has in store for me.

I made 8 exposures and then opened them in PhotoShop; I
copied them in the same file and did an alignement (vertical center-horizontal center) and put all the layers in "multiply" state.

There are, broadly speaking, traditionally two methods that are used in photography.
Either one shoots correctly exposed subjects against a black background, and by multiple non-overlapping exposures of the same frame, creates a composition or one records a motion sequence in a single frame. Or one shoots multiple overlapping exposures on the same frame but, because exposures add up, each individual exposure is reduced in exposure value to avoid overexposing the composite frame.
If that is what you want to mimic, you need to either use a "Lighten" layer blending mode if you have black backgrounds (also works great on fireworks) and non-overlapping images, or you need to "Add" the exposures (Image|Apply image…, and Add the RGB channels, with an opacity to compensate for the weight per image and avoid over"exposure").
You can also combine only the R, G or B channel of different shots of the same subject, and thus mimic the effect of combining e.g. three R, G and B filtered exposures.

Bart

Answering to Jonhboy, the impressionistic effects described by M.Bill Hilton is perfectly right. Moreover, I try to keep at least one object perfectly clear (ie rock, tree trunk, fence…) in the frame so the eye can get a bit of relief from all this movement. Although I knew
M.Patterson work, I thank you for the link. (I worked with M.Patterson
in some of the slide presentations he was doing on composition and lightning)

Thanks Bart, I’ll try the "add" method and will try to figure out the opacity needed for each added pictures. I’m working on 8 frames but the minute I get the knack of "adding" I’ll move up to my 64+ exposures.

Thanks again all

jeecee writes …

the impressionistic effects described by M.Bill
Hilton (Freeman Patterson link) is perfectly right …I worked with
M.Patterson in some of the slide presentations he was doing on
composition and lightning …

What Freeman typically does is shoot either 9 multiples at -3 ev exposure or 16 at -4 ev on the same piece of film with slight (or sometimes exaggerated) movement between frames (I took a week-long class with him in New Brunswick once) … I tried duplicating this with digital by shooting 9 separate frames at -3, processing them normally with the RAW converter and stacking them, with the blend mode of the top 8 layers set to ‘screen’ at 100% opacity. This works well for the exposure BUT because of the way digital data is captured there is very little info at -3 stops and I got serious banding with this method … I can post an example if you want to see it.

I’ve also tried shooting at a normal exposure and stacking the files with reduced opacity (say 10% for 10 shots), which sort of works but not really, at least on the one or two test cases I tried. I also discussed this problem with a lady who’s writing a Photoshop book due out this summer and she said she got good results *sometimes* using the ‘overlay’ blending mode at 50%, though I didn’t get all the details from her. So there’s probably a way to do this right but it’s not as easy as with film so far as I can tell. If you find a good bullet-proof solution please post it.

There are a couple of digital cameras that allow multiple exposures in-camera, I think by Nikon or one of the Nikon-mount companies like maybe Fuji …

Bill

In article , Bill
Hilton wrote:

What Freeman typically does is shoot either 9 multiples at -3 ev exposure or 16 at -4 ev on the same piece of film with slight (or sometimes exaggerated) movement between frames (I took a week-long class with him in New Brunswick once) … I tried duplicating this with digital by shooting 9 separate frames at -3, processing them normally with the RAW converter and stacking them, with the blend mode of the top 8 layers set to ‘screen’ at 100% opacity. This works well for the exposure BUT because of the way digital data is captured there is very little info at -3 stops and I got serious banding with this method … I can post an example if you want to see it.

I’ve also tried shooting at a normal exposure and stacking the files with reduced opacity (say 10% for 10 shots), which sort of works but not really, at least on the one or two test cases I tried. I also discussed this problem with a lady who’s writing a Photoshop book due out this summer and she said she got good results *sometimes* using the ‘overlay’ blending mode at 50%, though I didn’t get all the details from her. So there’s probably a way to do this right but it’s not as easy as with film so far as I can tell. If you find a good bullet-proof solution please post it.

There are a couple of digital cameras that allow multiple exposures in-camera, I think by Nikon or one of the Nikon-mount companies like maybe Fuji …

Bill

You’re right about the -3EV information data; you can always push a bit in exposure in your RAW plug-In and then reduce a bit the transparency in PhotoShop. Who knows? Maybe the banding will get reduced?

I’m still working with the different blending (even "softlight" could do) of layers and the way opacity and fill work together. Believe me, if I find a way to duplicate the results that I had previously with conventonial photographhy, I’ll sure post the method.

I’m not into a race to see who can find the best ways, but I’ll run experiences from time to time.

"Bill Hilton" wrote:

There are a couple of digital cameras that allow multiple exposures in-camera, I think by Nikon or one of the Nikon-mount companies like maybe Fuji …

The Nikon D2X can do this.

Bill wrote …

I also discussed this problem with a lady who’s writing a Photoshop book due out this summer and she said she got good results *sometimes* using the ‘overlay’ blending mode at 50%, though I didn’t get all the details from her.

OK jeecee, I emailed this lady and she sent me a receipe that seems to work better than anything else I have tried, at least on my one quickie test case I just ran. Here’s what she wrote … "It’s in the book, but the idea is basically this. The first layer is 100% opacity, the second 50%, the third 33%, the fourth is 25%, the fifth is 20%, etc. Divide 100 by the number of the layer and you get the percent opacity to use for that layer. Sometimes I change the blending mode of the final layer to overlay."

This is with all images shot at normal exposure so you bypass the banding problems I mentioned earlier with underexposed images.

This is courtesy of Dr. Ellen Anon, who is co-authoring a book with Tim Grey titled "PhotoShop for Nature Photographers: A Workshop in a Book" due out in July. Thanks Ellen!

Bill

In article ,
Bill Hilton wrote:

Bill wrote …

I also discussed this problem with a lady who’s writing a Photoshop book due out this summer and she said she got good results *sometimes* using the ‘overlay’ blending mode at 50%, though I didn’t get all the details from her.

OK jeecee, I emailed this lady and she sent me a receipe that seems to work better than anything else I have tried, at least on my one quickie test case I just ran. Here’s what she wrote … "It’s in the book, but the idea is basically this. The first layer is 100% opacity, the second 50%, the third 33%, the fourth is 25%, the fifth is 20%, etc. Divide 100 by the number of the layer and you get the percent opacity to use for that layer. Sometimes I change the blending mode of the final layer to overlay."

This is with all images shot at normal exposure so you bypass the banding problems I mentioned earlier with underexposed images.
This is courtesy of Dr. Ellen Anon, who is co-authoring a book with Tim Grey titled "PhotoShop for Nature Photographers: A Workshop in a Book" due out in July. Thanks Ellen!

Bill

Hi Bill

Many thanks to you and Dr.Ellen Anon; I sure will buy the book. Someone trying hard to get the photographer back into PhotoShop (instead of the usual click-action stuff and push-that-button-and-wow; don’t get me wrong, I use actions and filters but it’s rewarding to duplicate closely an effect from scratch). The recipe is very good and it opens new vistas as how to interpolate transparency and blending mode in multiple layers.
Tons of fun ahead

Many thanks again

In article <260520052043592065%>,
says…

In article ,
Bill Hilton wrote:

Bill wrote …

I also discussed this problem with a lady who’s writing a Photoshop book due out this summer and she said she got good results *sometimes* using the ‘overlay’ blending mode at 50%, though I didn’t get all the details from her.

OK jeecee, I emailed this lady and she sent me a receipe that seems to work better than anything else I have tried, at least on my one quickie test case I just ran. Here’s what she wrote … "It’s in the book, but the idea is basically this. The first layer is 100% opacity, the second 50%, the third 33%, the fourth is 25%, the fifth is 20%, etc. Divide 100 by the number of the layer and you get the percent opacity to use for that layer. Sometimes I change the blending mode of the final layer to overlay."

This is with all images shot at normal exposure so you bypass the banding problems I mentioned earlier with underexposed images.
This is courtesy of Dr. Ellen Anon, who is co-authoring a book with Tim Grey titled "PhotoShop for Nature Photographers: A Workshop in a Book" due out in July. Thanks Ellen!

Bill

Hi Bill

Many thanks to you and Dr.Ellen Anon; I sure will buy the book. Someone trying hard to get the photographer back into PhotoShop (instead of the usual click-action stuff and push-that-button-and-wow; don’t get me wrong, I use actions and filters but it’s rewarding to duplicate closely an effect from scratch). The recipe is very good and it opens new vistas as how to interpolate transparency and blending mode in multiple layers.
Tons of fun ahead

I ‘discovered’ this technique when I was trying to merge multiple exposures of sea-sapes (crashing waves etc). For around 4 exposures it works quite nicely, but for 64
exposures it gets messy and also the transparency for the uper layers cant be chosen properly.

I used the following adaptation (which requires you to only remember 50%, 33%, and 25%).

Takke your first pictures (1,2,3,4) put 1 as background and layer 2,3, and 4 (in normal mode) at transparencies 50%, 33%, and 25%. Now flatten (or whatever) and save as ‘a’ (or whatever). Repeat with photos 5,6,7,8 – saving as ‘b’.
You will end up with 16 composites of 4 shots each, and now you can begin combining them together in groups of 4. I.E. a at 100% with b,c,d, at 50% 33% and 25% respectively (save this as w). Repeat the process again with e,f,g,h etc (saved as x). Finally you have 4 pictures, each consisting of
composites of composites and you can now combine them in the same way. W(100%)+x(50%)+y(33%)+z(25%) and voila – a nice 64 shot composite.

Obviously you can combine groups of 3,4,5 etc photos in the same way to deal with totals of 12 (=3*4) or 20 (=4*5) or 300 = (3*4*5*5 if you are very patient), and the underlying layers will always contribute exactly the right ‘exposure share’.

You might want to adjust the levels occasionally (and
equally for all layers) to avoid blowing out highlights.

In article , Mike
wrote:

I ‘discovered’ this technique when I was trying to merge multiple exposures of sea-sapes (crashing waves etc). For around 4 exposures it works quite nicely, but for 64
exposures it gets messy and also the transparency for the uper layers cant be chosen properly.

I used the following adaptation (which requires you to only remember 50%, 33%, and 25%).

Takke your first pictures (1,2,3,4) put 1 as background and layer 2,3, and 4 (in normal mode) at transparencies 50%, 33%, and 25%. Now flatten (or whatever) and save as ‘a’ (or whatever). Repeat with photos 5,6,7,8 – saving as ‘b’.
You will end up with 16 composites of 4 shots each, and now you can begin combining them together in groups of 4. I.E. a at 100% with b,c,d, at 50% 33% and 25% respectively (save this as w). Repeat the process again with e,f,g,h etc (saved as x). Finally you have 4 pictures, each consisting of
composites of composites and you can now combine them in the same way. W(100%)+x(50%)+y(33%)+z(25%) and voila – a nice 64 shot composite.

Obviously you can combine groups of 3,4,5 etc photos in the same way to deal with totals of 12 (=3*4) or 20 (=4*5) or 300 = (3*4*5*5 if you are very patient), and the underlying layers will always contribute exactly the right ‘exposure share’.

You might want to adjust the levels occasionally (and
equally for all layers) to avoid blowing out highlights.

Thanks Mike, that’s a nice way to get around my 64 exposures "mess". As you already discovered, patience and fine tuning is the key. I made some test comparing between the 100-50-33-etc version, the "copy-paste" using transparency and the add method via the "apply image" and using either "multiply" or "overlay" blend with different percentages of transparency.

All good exercises to practice my patience and to see what please me the most (or I should say what’s closer to what I want).

Still trying stuff

Thanks again for the tip