A little more than nine years ago, I shared a double-exposed photograph that I had shot sometime in the late 1980s. It was a photo of the moon, superimposed on a capture of the Chateau Laurier and Daly Building (which was torn down in the 90s).
To accomplish this effect, I first took the photograph of the Chateau Laurier and then had to manipulate my old Minolta X-700 35mm camera so that I could take another shot without having to advance the film. I also had to memorize the composition of the buildings in the first photo so that when I photographed the moon, none of the subjects would overlap.
When I photographed the moon, I also zoomed in on it with my telephoto lens.
I didn't know whether that effect was successful until about a week or so later, when I received my processed slides. Luckily, it didn't turn out too badly.*
Today, the process is much simpler: I only need to take the two photographs and layer the digital images in post-processing. Or I can even skip taking a capture of the moon, myself.
Using my standard photo-editing software, Corel PaintShop Pro 2021, I chose two photos that were as close to my original photo of the Chateau Laurier as I could find. It also includes the War Memorial, where I would have been standing even in the late 80s. I then sought out a photo that I had shot of the moon, which was a more-difficult task: while I have lots of photos in which the moon appears, I have very few in which the moon is the main subject.
Finding a clear image of the moon was even more of a challenge and I have now learned that I need to hone these skills.
As soon as I had two satisfactory images, I selected only the moon from within its RAW file and copied it into the other photo (which had already been processed from RAW and saved as a JPEG) as a new layer. I positioned the moon and tilted it to an angle that I liked. I then blended the two images, so that they looked like they were a single image, and here's the result.
It took me about 10 minutes to get this PSP image to as good as I could (not counting the time it took to find an image of the moon). I almost never use layers and it's been several years since I have, so I found editing this image to be a bit of a PITA.
Next, I took the single JPEG image of the Chateau Laurier and cenotaph, and opened it in Luminar AI to see how it would handle it.
There are several special effects tools in Luminar AI, which I had discussed in a previous post. You can easily add objects to a photo, including birds, clouds, fireworks, and more. There are two images of the moon, and so I chose the one that best matched the moon that I had for my PSP photo. I dropped it in, made it smaller, and tilted it so that it was close to the tilt that I added to my PSP moon.
Total editing time: less than a minute.
Which photo do you like the best? The 1980s double exposure, the PSP layered double exposure, or the enhanced, augmented Luminar AI photo?
Happy Friday!
* The 35mm slide photo was further edited with PSP for this post. To see the original (digitally scanned from the slide), go to my original post.
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