yep, stuck again. I did a few really fast versions, no accuracy at all, just to see if it is working. I either gets lines through everyone, or i can not get the path between the legs as example to be the brightness it should. I am stumped. I thought it might have something to do with not having subtract front shaped checked, but it was. If you would not mind, have a look and see what you think. ... View more

davescm, Been back awhile, very busy, just now getting back it at that image. I think i figured out my problem or steps i was doing wrong, will let you know further. Thanks again for all the help. Canada was awesome, tho the heavy smoke made it difficult to shoot sometimes. I highly recommend everyone experience it, especially the glaciers. Can't wait to go back. ... View more

    dave, This will have to wait awhile. I head to Canada (Banff, Jasper, Assiniboine) in a week, wont be back for a month. The family does not need the shot or shots done til November, so i will have time in September/October to get back at this. Quite busy right now getting ready for this trip. Thanks for your help on all this, i will reconnect in the fall. Dave Clock. ... View more

    dave, I have having all kinds of problems, not sure what i am doing wrong. Super quick rough draw, not at all what i am after in the final image. But trying it out is not quite working. What do you think? ....... ... View more

I tried working with it and managed most of the way how it should look using your steps. Only thing i did not do, likely, is use the correct pen tool and could not match up the dark area of the 2 images while tracing out the path. I will try again tomorrow night, thanks again for your time on this. ... View more

Dave, Thanks so much for the help on this. If it matters, i am on a mac computer. I have not tried your steps yet, but last night messed with just opening the 2 images in PS, then could not move forward from there. I have always used PS and LR for very minimal editing on landscape images, so all this is a bit tough for me to figure out. Never have worked with layers or masks, sad to say. Always work with shadow, highlights, color, sharpness, etc basic panel stuff. I will see if i can figure this out. Thanks so much again. ... View more

That is what i need each step in how to do. Thank you so much for doing this. Dave. ... View more

Hello, I am back. Here is just 2 images for test reasons of what i am talking about working with. Tell me what you all think. The brighter image was a 30 second exposure, the darker one 10 second image. I will likely do the same this weekend when it counts, 6 people in the shot, may have to run the short exposure more like 5 seconds. Want to basically put the dark foreground from the darker image into the brighter sky shot as we talked about before. Thanks, Dave. ... View more

That is likely what i will do, but i do not know how to work masks or layers really. Almost all my editing is light amounts of color, shadow and highlight. I need to learn how to do masks and fast. Thanks for your reply. ... View more

I am leaving tomorrow for 5 days out of town. I will be shooting while gone so i will do a similar version of the shot i talk about. The shot has to be with 6 family members and the milky way in the background, all dark foreground, no light, flash etc on foreground. Then i will try to post something back up to this thread next week. It is the following weekend i have to do the shoot, and have 3 weeks to get it delivered to the family. I have shot tons of night sky images, just never exposed for the sky, then exposed for the foreground and combined them. What is giving me trouble is how to layer them in PS. I can get actions and layers windows open but can not either get both images on layers or some other way to overlay them. Or cut out the sky in the dark shot, showing just foreground silhouette of people, then layer over a second image of the sky exposure. Sorry if i am repeating myself.  Again i will show a few test images when i get back of what i have in mind. Thanks everyone so far for any help. ... View more

   Hello, I have not taken the shots just yet. I will be doing this with a family end of next week. I could post them after that? Or since i will be out shooting this weekend, maybe i will do a test run of the shot idea. ... View more

I thought i was all updated, but apparently not, just did it and it now works. This was for Photoshop CC. Thanks for your time. ... View more