Help Please: step by step how to create a composite image

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.

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.

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.

Hi,

Here is a tutorial I created using a few images in a similar fashion and it also show how to produce a pop art finish for the foreground character: Designing a Concert Poster in Photoshop | Pluralsight

Here is another which you may find useful: https://www.skillshare.com/classes/Photo-Manipulation-Master-Photo-Editing/1732902986?via=search-layout-grid 

You may like  to know you can do this with a single exposure providing you have a camera that can shoot in 'Raw'. Adobe Camera raw will enable you to process the same photograph with two separate exposures, the first with the foreground correctly exposed and the second with the starscape correctly exposed. You then bring the two different exposures into Photoshop as stacked layers. By masking out the sky from the foreground image the starscape will show through and the exposures will be correct. This will also work with a Jpeg but the results are far better with 16bit raw images.

I had to do something similar to this just last week and the photographer had only taken  one really usable photograph. I had my doubts but it worked surprisingly well. I am lucky enough to have a subscription to a website which has a 4 hour course on ACR and this technique was one of the modules. If you don't mind paying $35, I have put a link to the course below. It is actually well worth the money as it covers all the features of the latest camera raw which are quite difficult to find for free on YouTube

https://phlearn.com/tutorial/adobe-camera-raw-photoshop/

Hi, I found a step by step tutorial that can be helpful to replace the sky in your image: Quick and Dirty Guide to Replacing Skies in Photoshop | Fstoppers

You can start with step 3: drag the long exposure sky on top of the short exposure photo. This means you'll have two layers, with the long exposure layer on top. 

And here's another step by step tutorial: How To Replace The Sky In A Photo With Photoshop

There are several ways to do this, but the workflow in both tutorials is similar.

Good luck with your project!

   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.

Hi

Can you post both images you are trying to composite, at a reasonably high resolution, and we can try and help with steps

Dave