How to Align and Mask Multiple Photos
David JohnstonDescription
You have captured two landscape images from the same angle, but the background or foreground image is out of focus. What if you could combine the images to hold focus throughout the image? In this premium video, Outdoor Photography Guide’s David Johnston shows you how to align and mask together a double focus stack.
He demonstrates this technique with his two telephoto images of cypress trees. Working on the first image in Lightroom, David makes a few editing adjustments including vibrance, contrast, and tone. Then, he merges those editing adjustments into his second image. Next, he opens the two image layers in Photoshop and auto aligns them, then crops the edges.
Finally, he auto-blends the two layers by stacking the images into a single file. A few tool adjustments, and the final aligned and sharpened image is complete.