What technique for creating multiexposures + sharp foreground?

[DavidMillier]

I'm thinking of something like a city scene where the background buildings are highly fuzzed and abstracted using overlapping multiple exposures blended together but with a foreground (say a person) that is still and sharply rendered.

Would you do it with a rapid burst of handheld shots, slightly moving the camera, to create the overlapping images to abstract the background and blend these together as a stack; then combine that blended stack with a single sharp image of the foreground?

Something like that? A completely different approach?

What blending mode would you use - averaging? Something else?

Example: Here we have a background almost fuzzed away by multi exposures but with a perfectly recognisable lamp in the foreground

https://www.pepventosa.com/gallery.html?gallery=Urban+Sculptures&folio=The+Photographs&sortnumber=5

Example2: here the building is almost abstracted away using overlapping multiple exposures but the people on the crossing are rendered clearly

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[TimoKoo]

I'm thinking of something like a city scene where the background buildings are highly fuzzed and abstracted using overlapping multiple exposures blended together but with a foreground (say a person) that is still and sharply rendered.

Would you do it with a rapid burst of handheld shots, slightly moving the camera, to create the overlapping images to abstract the background and blend these together as a stack; then combine that blended stack with a single sharp image of the foreground?

Something like that? A completely different approach?

What blending mode would you use - averaging? Something else?

Example: Here we have a background almost fuzzed away by multi exposures but with a perfectly recognisable lamp in the foreground

https://www.pepventosa.com/gallery.html?gallery=Urban+Sculptures&folio=The+Photographs&sortnumber=5

Maybe median blend, try 'convert-im6.q16 *.tif -evaluate-sequence median median.tif' the output is file with name median.tif. The plain 'convert' command could work:

'convert *.tif -evaluate-sequence median median.tif'

Example2: here the building is almost abstracted away using overlapping multiple exposures but the people on the crossing are rendered clearly

https://1x.com/photo/3242524

Try 'enfuse --exposure-weight=0 --saturation-weight=0 --contrast-weight=1 --hard-mask --contrast-edge-scale=0.5:%:% --output=fused.tif *.tif'

This is the focus stacking command which can be used in street photography. You can set the weight foe exposure, saturation and contrast. Values between 0 to 1 are possible. This keeps the sharp parts in the output file.

Command for 'a poor man's hdr' is 'enfuse --exposure-weight=1 --saturation-weight=0 --contrast-weight=0 --hard-mask --output=fused.tif *.tif' Maybe --soft-mask is better for exposure fusion.

 

[DavidMillier]

I should have said I would want to do this using darktable's stacking script. Which for stacking a single stack of images offers: Mean, median, Abs, Add, And, Divide, Max, Min, Or, Subtract, Sum, Xor options.

What I am most unsure about is how the example images combine a fuzzed background with a sharp foreground ie the people crossing the crossing aren't 20 overlapping images like the background is.

When I have stacked multi exp before you tend to end up with everything having fuzzy overlapping images, not a sharp subject against a fuzzy background.

 

[Jeff Biscuits]

What I am most unsure about is how the example images combine a fuzzed background with a sharp foreground ie the people crossing the crossing aren't 20 overlapping images like the background is.

The example images look to me more like layering of separate exposures in Photoshop than in-camera multiple exposures. Once you take that route, you’re free to mask things in various layers and be more selective about what ends up in the image, rather than simply stacking entire frames, and I think that’s what’s been done here.

 

[DavidMillier]

What I am most unsure about is how the example images combine a fuzzed background with a sharp foreground ie the people crossing the crossing aren't 20 overlapping images like the background is.

The example images look to me more like layering of separate exposures in Photoshop than in-camera multiple exposures. Once you take that route, you’re free to mask things in various layers and be more selective about what ends up in the image, rather than simply stacking entire frames, and I think that’s what’s been done here.

Ah, right, thanks.

I don't think that is beyond darktable.

In addition to the image stacking capability, it also has an image compositing capability that allows you blend an image using masks and to resize and reposition the overlayed image and adjust opacity.

This would allow me to do a multiexposure stack using the image stacking function, then overlay, position, size and blend in a foreground subject from another image.

Here's a crude example compositiong a patch from one raw file over the top of another and resizing and repositioning it



Darktable really is a bit like a mix of a raw convertor and photoshop-like abilities in one package but all still operating in the parametric rather than raster environment.

(No raw files were harmed in the making of this composite).



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[Teila Day]

Stack many frames to get the "fuzzy" looking background

1. take a several photographs of whatever static item you wish to include, people walking, a lamp post, etc. pick the best static photo.

2. flatten them on top of one another in, say, photoshop.

3. "paint" in as much of the static photos as you wish.

4. done.