Note: Photo tips are answers to questions asked on our Facebook page. If you would like to submit a question, please click here to submit your question. We will then post them on our Facebook page and let our fans respond to the question. We will then transfer the question over to our blog so we can keep them in an organized way for others to see.
Question from Beth: “I will be photographing a nurse graduation picture in the next few weeks and I process in Lightoom. The class would like me to take a picture of their college building and a picture of them inside the building and mesh the 2 together. They want a blurry picture in the background of the building and then over the top – sharp. Is there a way to do this in Lightoom?”
Christy: not that i know of. i use only LR and do not think you can blend photos.
Jamey: I don’t use Lightroom but I would imagine there is a way to layer photos and lower the opacity of the bottom one which would be the building.
Becca: I use Elements 10, & I can do it in there, don’t know how cause I’m new to all of this, but it is there. I would assume LR would be able to do something along the lines as it is a higher quality program is it not? Good luck!
Bridget: Not in Lightroom, no. IMHO, that kind of compositing requires a lot of knowledge in Photoshop and work to make it look natural — both the post processing and taking the actual pictures to make sure the lighting looks believable. You would be much better off taking them in front of the building. Move them far enough away from the building to get some separation, and set your aperture to keep them all sharp but blur the building. Sounds like you have a back seat driver for a subject!
Emily: Not that I know of, but what you can do is pull both the photos out of lightroom and into photoshop (just drag and drop onto the photoshop icon.) Once you’re done just save and Lightroom will update with your changes.
Emily : You will need photoshop for this I’m afraid – it will be tricky if you don’t know photoshop well
Trena: I’ve heard of a plug in for Lightroom that will let you use layers…perfect layers by onone, but I haven’t used it do can’t really say if it would do the job.
Brandi: Def in Photoshop. I use Elements 10, and I’ve done this several times with family photos. Combined two or more photos esp with little ones bc you want that “perfect” portrait! Go to the guides section in elements and choose “combine photos” ….
It will walk you thru what to do but if you need any additional help please feel free to email me!! Twopeasphotographyllc@gmail.com
Jenna: Lightroom doesn’t support layers. If you don’t want to invest in Photoshop, you can do it with GIMP. (It’s a shareware software similar to Photoshop.) GIMP supports layers and opacity adjustments.
Al: Which version of Lightroom do you have?
Ashleigh: I have LR and CS5. I have never used layers in LR but i think it has it. I always use it in CS5. Google it and see if something comes up. Good Luck
Feel free to keep responding to this question using our comment section below.