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| HDR Tone Mapping with Layers in Photoshop |
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Step 2 – Aligning the layers
When shooting photos for HDR, many times the photos aren’t perfectly align. Even slight misalignment can cause ghostings/artifacts. Before we proceed, we need to ensure that the layers are properly aligned. If you’ve imported your photos using Photoshop CS3 or newer in the previous step, skip to step 3.
Photoshop CS3 or newer
Photoshop CS3 introduced a new feature called Auto Align Layers. With this command, Photoshop can analyze your layers and automatically align them. Start by selecting all three layers. You can select multiple layers by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard.
Choose Edit > Auto-Align Layers. Select reposition as the projection method then click OK.
Photoshop CS2 or older
Unfortunately, Photoshop CS2 or older do not have the auto align layers feature. You’ll have to manually align the layers. However, we’ll show you a neat trick to make this fast and easy. Here’s how to align layers manually: Hide the top layer then set the blending mode of the second layer to difference.
After you change the blending mode to difference, you’ll notice that your image will look inverted and most likely embossed. If there is no embossing, it means that your image is perfectly aligned. If there is embossing, you’ll need to align thelayer. To align the layer, select the Move tool (V) then press the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge the layer until the embossing effect disappears. Below is an example of the before and after results of nudging.
Change the blending mode of the current layer back to normal. Enable visibility for the top layer then change the blending mode to difference.
Like earlier, select the Move tool (V) then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge the layers so that the embossing effect disappears. Change the blending mode back to normal when you’re done. Don’t forget to crop the image! If you imported the photos from Lightroom, leave the image uncropped and crop it in Lightroom instead.
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