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Another method you can use to blend files together is to use a
layer mask and apply a gradient to that layer mask.
I've opened these two files.
I've loaded them into PhotoShop using the load PhotoShop -- load
files as PhotoShop layers command.
Here you'll see I have two images of the same building.
One was taken in the winter time, and one was taken in the
summer time.
What I'd like to do is blend these two together.
I can give PhotoShop a shot at aligning these files and see if it
can find matching edges.
Let's choose auto and see how that will work for us.
Okay.
Not enough to overlap.
There's not enough to overlap, so I have to align these myself.
So I'm going to select the top layer, and I'm going to step down
the opacity, because there is the same part of the images that I would
like to align together.
So the top layer is going to be aligned this way.
Okay.
And you'll see that it doesn't perfectly align.
There's an item here in the water that doesn't align correctly, but
we'll fix that.
So now that I've manually aligned these myself, I'm going to take
the opacity and step it back up.
They're offset a little bit.
Let me see if I can align that a little more.
In the top layer make sure that the top layer is selected.
Apply a layer mask by clicking on the layer mask icon at the
bottom of the layers panel.
Now I'm going to choose my gradient tool.
Now with my gradient tool I'm going to fade from front to back,
the foreground color to the background color.
In a layer mask black hides; white reveals.
I'm going to come over to my image and start dragging to see
what parts I want to hide and what parts I want to reveal.
I can actually then get my brush tool, and I want a large size
brush.
If there's some areas that the gradient tool just won't get the way
I want it to get, I can come down and dab my brush in certain areas to
get the effect I want, hiding portions of the image.
Once I'm done, I want to choose the crop tool, and I'm going to
crop that area away.
And I'm done.
So just that quickly I've taken an image that is partial winter and
partial summer and blended the image together using a layer mask
and the gradient tool.