High Dynamic Range Digital Photography For Dummies®

Chapter 10. Layers, Process, and Blending

In This Chapter

• Understanding layers and big league layer management

• Optimizing your workflow

• Blending, blending, and more blending

Achapter in an HDR photography book on layers, process, and blendi Yup. Layers, process, and blending are important topics when it co to editing a tone mapped HDR image. Layers make a lot of things — like blending — possible. You can use layers to make different adjustments an changes, track changes, evaluate different approaches, and undo your wo to various points in the process to start fresh.

Managing layers is part of an overall process where you try to work in a fairly structured way to achieve specific goals rather than work randomly or haphazardly. That's not to say that randomness isn't fun, but when you try and re-create or remember something you've done in an earlier image, you'll appreciate a bit of order.

Blending, which relies on manipulating layers, enables you to make things look more or less realistic, correct specific problems within your images, and accentuate or protect positive aspects from other edits. (For example, noise reduction notoriously degrades your images.) You can selectively edit and control how things appear in the final image.

In the end, it's up to you to decide how and when to use layers and blending, and to use the processes and workflow that makes the most sense to you. However, ...