Basic questions for a new user.

[Hameed]

I'm a photography hobbyist and use Adobe Lightroom for all my photo editing - basic stuff like cropping, clarity, saturation etc.

 

There two pieces of functionality that I'd like to get familiar with that LR does not support - image compositing and blending.  

 

Is Paint.net good for these two functions?  I've tried out GIMP and the learning curve is steeper than I expected just to learn these two techniques (or I was only able to stumble on tutorials that were not that great).   How is Paint.net compared to GIMP for these two functions?  

 

I'm not interested in Adobe PS as its a resource hog and I don't need all its functionality.  TIA

[Pixey]

Hello @Hameed and Welcome to the forum.

 

I think you will find paint.net will be of help.  Sadly, one tutorial I was about to direct you to, has lost all of its images - due to Photo-bucket hijacking the images.

 

However, please take a look at this one:

 

 

 

[Ishi]

Yes, image compositing and blending are possible on Paint.NET because we have layer support and it would not take as much resources as Photoshop to achieve. I can do it but I think I would find very handy the plugins such as AA's Assistant, Feather and Liquify for that. I have been playing and made my own movie and game spoof posters for that.

 

Are there any specifics on the type of compositing and blending you want to achieve?

 

 

[Hameed]

Thanks Pixey and Ishi!

 

The specifics are as follows:

1. Compositing example:  Taking a long exposure of a scene where one object (such as a person) is moving and the rest of the scene isn't (say a boat in a lake at night).  I would first take a regular fast shutter picture exposing the person properly and then take a second very long exposure shot to expose the boat and water to achieve a soft look on the water.  So in this case I would cut out the person from the first image and composite him into the long exposure image.

 

2. Blending example - I take multiple burst shots of an action sequence - say someone diving into a lake.  Everything about this scene is exactly the same other than the person moving.   Now I want to blend/composite all the images together so that I have a single image with the diver in a couple of positions as he/she is diving into the water.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Hameed

[Ishi]

That's easy enough. All you had to do is to have your scene as the Background layer and basically you trace out the person from your original image and put him on a top layer.

 

For your blending example, you only have to have separate layers for each of the diver's positions.

 

Take a look at my video of how I would approach something like this.

 

 

[Hameed]

Awesome, thanks Ishi!  I will review the tutorials later.