How to Combine Two Average Photos into One Spectacular Photo

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Yesterday was my 21st Wordless Wednesday post and, in my humble opinion, the best one to date. In this post I’ll answer the big question of how I did it.

First, a bit of back story: I had a doctor’s appointment to get my back evaluated to see if I’d need surgery to repair a blown disk (L5/S2 for all my chiro/neuro peeps). The appointment was at Shands Hospital directly across from the local Veterans Administration hospital. Being a vet, I go to the VA for annual check ups. Being a civilian, I do NOT go there for much of anything else.

Considering that the parking-to-patient/visitor ratio is somewhere around 1:683, I decided to be sneaky and avoid paying the $3.00 to park in the Shands garage. You could say I’m a master of elusive parking, but you probably won’t.

Motorcycle parking at the VA is free and always open. I own a motorcycle. On top of all that, I can be a pretty smart guy sometimes. Taking this into consideration, I decided to park at the VA and then stealthily walk to Shands via the sooper-seekrit underground tunnel that only people of my caliber would know about.

Which brings us to the photograph. This tunnel is ultra-sterile and feels like a bomb shelter. I mean, you could probably perform open-heart surgery in there - it’s that clean. Anyway, it offered a neat perspective, so I snapped two shots from different angles (as seen in this post) and was on my way.

I had planned on posting one, but both of them were overexposed from all of the reflections and fluorescent lighting. I sat there and thought of how I would weasel my way around another Wordless Wednesday, when suddenly it hit me; combine them into one.

Here’s how I did it, in bullets, because I’ve already wasted enough of your time (and it’s easier to comprehend):

• Open both images in Photoshop (I use CS2, but you can probably adapt this to any program)
• Drag one of the images onto the other, which then gives you an image with two layers.
• Save the new image as something else and close the source images.
• After adjusting levels, tweak the top layer’s opacity until the desired result is achieved. You want to go for a blended image that looks like the two were taken as one.
• As part of the above step, adjust the opacity of the bottom layer as well. Try playing with blending modes also. I think I used “multiply” or “overlay” on the top layer.
• Create a new layer below the image layers and paint it white. This will lend a light and ethereal feeling after reducing the opacity of both image layers.
• Select both image layers and create copies. Then select the two original ones and merge them together.
• Rotate the merged image layer 180 degrees. This layer should be the bottom layer with the two copies above it.
• The copied layers are probably at 100% opacity, so you’ll need to adjust them as before. Once you get a decent result, you’re good to go.
• Merge all layers into one and then save the image for the web.

I’m happy with the result and I’m glad to see that at least 19 visitors were as well. If you’re still confused, drop me a line in the comments section and I’ll confuse you even more.

Stay tuned for another edition of Your GPS Camera Phone, coming this Friday!

You also might like:

• Blending Modes are Freakin’ Awesome
• Negative Week, Day 3: Blending Negative Images in Ten Easy Steps
• Second Shotz Group on Flickr is Rockin’
• How to Edit Photos for the Web in Three Minutes

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