hello I'm Robin Whalley welcome to lenscraft in a previous
video I explained how the blending ranges feature worked in affinity photo
you'll need to understand blending ranges for today's video if you didn't
see the previous video I'll include a link in the description below in today's
video we're using blending ranges in affinity photo to do some luminosity
blending if you're an Adobe Photoshop user you may have done something similar
using luminosity masks to demonstrate this I'll use two versions of an image
which I've processed from the same raw file one image is a dark exposure where
I reduce the exposure and contrast the other is much brighter because I
increase the exposure slider but I reduce the highlights to recover the
blown out areas what I want to do is create a single image which gives me the
best of both of these images I'll select the light layer first because it's on
top in the layers studio panel and it gives me much more controlled in the
blending ranges dialog when I open the blending ranges dialog I'll first take a
minute to understand the effect of the two control grids on this image if I use
the source layer grid the blending will be based on the light layer in that
layer you can see there's a large portion of the image that's light when I
move the white point down to set the opacity to zero it allows a large
portion of the darker layer beneath it to show through this also kills the
contrast in the image because there are bright tones across the entire frame in
that layer if instead I used the grit for the underlying composition the
blending becomes based on the tones in the dark layer you can see the dark
layer has very few bright areas in comparison to the light layer when I
move the white point down to zero or pass attack the brightest tones from the
dark layer start to show through this produces a nicer result and retains more
of the local contrast in areas like the rocks no
I'll check the black points
on balance I think I prefer the results from the source layer based on what I've
seen I can set the black and white blending points for both of these layers
I'll also include a midpoint adjustment to each grid then move it around to
achieve a nice balance of the tones
after doing this you may find that you need to tweet the black and white poems
I'm also going to remove the linear option to smooth out the blending a
little bit more now despite all the power of these blending ranges there's
still some areas of this image where I'd like to see more of the dark layer now
if I try to do that using the blending options dialog it would affect other
areas of the image and I don't want to do that instead I'm going to add a mask
to the lights layer I'll no paint on that mask using a soft black brush set
to a lower opacity
by painting the shadow area of the rock it darkens the area by hiding the light
layer this allows you to see more of the dark layer below it
now this example used two versions of an image processed at different exposures
but you can use it as the basis for other adjustments like changing the
color temperature in certain areas this is a very powerful photo editing
technique called double RAW processing you process the same raw file twice but
with different settings you then use luminosity blending to
bring them together I'll be demonstrating double raw processing with
some other photo editors in future videos you can find the finished image
from today and from my other videos on Instagram I'll include the link in the
video description below if you enjoyed this video please share it and don't
forget to subscribe I'm Robin Whalley you've been watching lenscraft I'll see
you next week for another video