Hula performers at Old Lahaina Luau as originally shot, ISO 6400, f/10, 1/60 sec., Nikon D7000, AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED

Now there seems to be a demand for the two things as a package. More often than not these days, I’m asked to live tweet events and contribute my photography to a collection of assets being shared online, adding to the feeling of “being there” as the photos are viewed in near real time. These photos subsequently find their way into the press and other venues as people who saw them approach me afterwards.

In Instagram, tap the button that takes you to your photo library.

When I first started doing this, I was carrying a laptop around, shooting with my DSLR, then finding a corner to hide in every so often to import the photos, do whatever retouching I could do quickly and post them to the Web. Then came the iPhone, and better yet, the iPad. Apps like Instagram hit the scene, along with a multitude of other stunning ways to share your work instantly.

Today, I own an iPhone 4s, which has a really nice camera with a wide aperture and great low light response. I love it. I use it a lot, even when I have my DSLR with me. Sometimes, it’s just the right camera for the job. I look forward to the day when the camera in my pocket is all I need.

But when I really have to adjust the aperture, shutter speed or ISO manually, or need a fast lens with some reach, right now there’s no beating a DSLR. So the goal for me became to be able to carry a DSLR around and be mobile enough to shoot and share without too much other gear (like a laptop.) If I could couple my iPhone to the DSLR, I’d be set. But sadly, there’s no clean and convenient way to do that yet. But with an iPad, I’ve developed a pretty reliable worklow.

The photo you're looking for is most likely in Last Import. If not, look in Photo Stream instead.

What you need:

• Permission to shoot at the venue!! If there are signs all over the place that prohibit photography, respect them if you’re not an authorized photographer! Those signs are there for a reason. Don’t be that guy (or gal.)
• A DLSR with a low noise sensor that shoots at very high ISO’s. As of this writing, my current weapon of choice is the Nikon D7000 for these situations. It’s fast, lightweight, versatile and has a fabulous sensor.
• A flash unit, though in many cases, especially in a theater environment, you can’t use it. Again, respect the rules! This is what the high-ISO/low-noise capability in your camera is for. Also, remember that the effective range of a flash is 6-10 feet, depending on make, model and conditions.
• If the action is on a stage, you’ll need a lens with a good zoom range and some reach—something like 200mm with as wide an aperture as you can get. You want to be able to grab shots from afar without being disruptive. A 70-200mm f/2.8 is great, but it might be a little heavy to be hauling around all day, so perhaps something more lightweight like an 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 might do just fine.
• If the action is more close range, then something like a 17-55mm f/2.8. Sigma makes an 18-50mm f/2.8 that does a fine job.
• An Apple iPad with sufficient storage. My policy is if you’re using it for photography, go with as much storage as you can get.
• An Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit. Maybe two of them, just to be safe. This is the key piece of equipment that gets the photos from the camera to the iPad.
• A card reader to use with the  iPad Camera USB connector (if your camera doesn’t use SD cards.)
• Alternatively, an Eye-Fi which comes with an iPhone/iPad app, but it may be less reliable or convenient, depending on the availability or quality of your wifi connection.
• A go-to iPad app to tweak your images if needed. There are a few I like, such as Photogene, Snapseed and Adobe Photoshop Express.
• All the photo sharing apps you need to share images with your friends and followers. This might be email app if all you’re doing is posting to Posterous, or something like Instagram (which runs just fine on the iPad even though it’s an iPhone app.) For posting to Flickr, I’ve taken a liking to FlickStackr.
• Portable connectivity, either built into the iPad, or something like a Verizon Mifi. This is the other key ingredient. No Internet, no sharing.
• A sling bag or something similar (small and simple) to carry your iPad, Mifi, chargers and Camera Connection Kit.

Old Lahaina Luau hula performers as shared on Instagram.

What you do:

1. Shoot
2. Import
3. Share.

Sounds simple, but it isn’t always.

Here are a few tips that might help:

• If the action is a production on a stage, make good use of the gorgeous existing light the stage crew is working so hard to provide. It’s more than enough light to capture what you need.
• Unless the light source is consistent and measurable, set your white balance to auto and trust the camera.
• Shoot right the first time. If you have to edit or retouch, it’ll slow you down. The idea is to get the shot out to the Web as fast as you can.
• Pay close attention to your depth of field. Decide what’s in focus and what’s not, and set your aperture and focal point accordingly. Know the hyperfocal distance of your lens.
• Set your autofocus so you can predict what it’s going to do.
• Keep your shutter speed at something like 1/100 sec. or above to minimize motion blur (unless blur is what you’re after.)
• Based on the above, adjust your ISO accordingly, as low as you can manage. Lower ISO = less noise.
• Compose with the knowledge that the app you’re using to share will probably crop. Shoot with an eye toward what it will look like on a social network.
• When you pull the card to import the images onto the iPad, have another one handy to swap back in right away. Nothing worse than a cardless camera when something good happens. My D7000 allows for two cards, so I always have one in the camera.
• Shoot JPEG or the images will take forever to import, and won’t work with most apps you’ll be using to share them with. (In my case, I’m able to shoot RAW+JPEG and only download the JPEG’s to my iPad, then import the RAW files into a computer later. Depending on your camera system, your mileage may vary.)
• Do not erase the card after importing! Carry more cards if you need to. I like to do a final import of everything onto a computer afterwards, just to make sure I don’t lose anything.
• Decide how you’re going to share the photos, bring up the app, go to your albums, choose the photos, add effects if necessary and share.
• In my case, I like to create a repository on Flickr so I can create slideshows or embed them into blogs later. It’s also makes them easier to find when someone comes to you and asks to publish them. Unless the Flickr Photostream is what my followers are watching as part of the event, I usually do this after the fact in the comfort of my office. This gives me the luxury of organizing and editing the photos in Lightroom as well.
• Which brings me to my last point. Remember to organize all the photos from the event in the tool of your choice, (Lightroom is mine) backup and archive.

If someone has a workflow that involves non-Apple devices, such as Droids, please share it here. I’d love to learn how you do it.

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'Ulalena at Maui Theatre

Last night, I was part of something very special. The folks at ‘Ulalena hosted what ended up being the largest tweetup in Maui history in honor of Eat Local Hawaii week, co-hosted by Edible Hawaiian Islands and Aloha Mixed Plate. In exchange for bringing a locally sourced pupu (appetizer), we were treated to a free performance of a this amazing show.

‘Ulalena is a gorgeous and unique blending of people, nature, culture and mythology, set to music and dance in a multi-million dollar venue custom built for its presentation, featuring some of Hawaii’s most distinguished musicians and performers, combining live Hawaiian music with 8-channel surround sound. The state of the art, computerized stage was built in Montreal and then transported and assembled in Lahaina piece by piece. Whether you’re a local or a visitor to Maui, this is a must-see experience.

'Ulalena at Maui Theatre, October 2010

Knowing that photography of any kind is prohibited in this venue, I asked for permission ahead of time and was privileged to be given a special okay by virtue of my being there in a professional capacity to promote the show, as long as I didn’t use a flash and I promised to share the photos with the cast and crew.

I’ve always wondered why people would bother with a flash in these settings. Besides the issue of safety for the performers, the truth is, there’s no reason to use a flash in an environment like this, and it would be ineffective anyway.

A flash unit (or speedlight) has an effective range of about 6-8 feet, so unless you’re right at the edge of the stage, it’s useless. And even if you are, it probably won’t illuminate the performers positioned upstage. Also, a lot of thought and planning went into the lighting for a show like this, so you’d not only be altering the spirit of the show with lighting of your own, you’d be missing out on an opportunity to harness the gorgeous scenes the show’s producers went to such lengths to provide for your enjoyment.

Here are a few tips for shooting a theater production from your seat:

'Ulalena at Maui Theatre, October 2010

Ask for permission ahead of time. For reasons ranging from the safety of the performers to copyright of the material, photography is usually prohibited in professional theater productions. Be respectful and ask for permission ahead of time, and make sure all the ushers know you have permission. Enough said.

Use fast lenses. You need to be able to shoot with a wide aperture to capture as much light as possible. For this shoot, I used an 18-50mm f/2.8 and an 85mm f/1.8. Practice changing lenses in the dark. You’ll thank yourself for putting in the effort, and everybody around you, especially the performers, will thank you for not making noise by dropping lens caps and such.

Use a high ISO setting. In order to achieve an acceptable shutter speed and gain some decent depth of field with your aperture, you’ll need to increase your ISO. I set mine to 1600 for this shoot. The unavoidable trade-off is higher noise, but the recent generation of DSLR’s do much better in that department, and the latest iterations of post-processing software, such as Adobe Lightroom, can do some amazing things too.

Be mindful of your depth of field. Focus is critical in a situation like this. You’ll be shooting fairly open most of the time. Chances are, unless the lighting is bright, you won’t be able stop down the aperture enough to get everything in focus, so choose your subjects thoughtfully. I’m usually in manual mode in these situations, so I have full control at all times.

Dont shoot during quiet moments if at all possible. No matter how quiet your shutter is, it’s not silent. Try to time your clicks with something else that’s happening, such as drum beats or other loud stage noises. Above all, don’t be disruptive.

See the photos on Flickr. ->

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It used to be that the only way to get both the interior and exterior in the same shot would be to meter for the outside and use elaborate lighting equipment to fill in the details inside. Now we have HDR. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and is a technique that allows you to capture the full range of light intensities within a scene, from bright to dark.

When we look at the scene, everything looks well exposed to us. This is because the human eye is capable of seeing about 20 f-stops of light, so we can perceive fine details in light and shadow very clearly. A DSLR is only capable of roughly half the number of f-stops, so in photography, we have to choose between capturing the highlights or the shadows. If you choose one, you sacrifice the other.

If done well, you can produce some nice effects, depending on whether you’re looking for silhouettes or a blown out look. But if you want to capture a balance of both, you have a challenge on your hands. There are techniques you can use to compensate somewhat. Shooting in the early mornings or late evenings when the light is soft is one. Or you can use an ND Grad if it’s appropriate for the scene. Or there’s always the old splice-pieces-of-differently-exposed-images-together-in-Photoshop trick.

Or there’s HDR. Essentially, you take several images, one with the scene metered properly, then a few overexposed and a few under, and let the HDR software blend the images together to give you a good composite of the darks and the lights. Photoshop has included HDR capability for a while now, and I’ve heard it’s improved greatly as of CS5, but for my money, Photomatix Pro from HDRsoft is still the best.

The example I have here is pretty extreme. Normally, I would take three or four shots—one metered correctly, then one or two above and below. In this case, I not only wanted to capture a good range between light and shadow, I wanted a very wide range, in case I felt like playing with artistic effects later.

For this scene, I took a total of 11 shots, varying one stop each. I basically kept stopping down until I didn’t see anymore “blinkies” in the LCD display.

Highlights exposed correctly, everything else in darkness.

Photomatix is great at aligning images by correcting for shifts or matching features, but I used a tripod for certainty.

As you can see, the shot with the front entrance exposed properly has blown highlights all over the place—the sky, reflections on the glass, etc. And in the shot where the glass, sky and trees are exposed properly, you can’t really see anything else in the image.

Per my usual workflow, I start in Lightroom, select the shots and export them to Photomatix using their Photomatix export plugin. After I select the options, Photomatix does its thing and produces the blended image.

Blended image in Photomatix in need of tone mapping.

The resulting image actually looks pretty bland. Remember, all the shadows are exposed correctly, as are all of the highlights, so you don’t have any contrast, which is a vital component in a good photo. So, the next step is to do some tone mapping—essentially setting the values of light and dark so that you get a compelling image.

This can be done completely in Photomatix, but what I like to do is take it part way, then re-import it into Lightroom to finish it. I like to do this because I have better tonal and color control in Lightroom, and its noise and sharpening controls are also much better, in my opinion.

Realistic rendering of an HDR image.

That’s pretty much all there is to it. I’m oversimplifying the process a bit, but this is the general idea. If you play with the various options, you’ll end up with a realistic rendering or an artistic one, whichever suits your purpose. Try it for yourself. Share a link to your work below so we can all enjoy it.

Artistic rendering of the same HDR image.

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South Maui Sunset with Lightroom "Adobe Standard" Adobe Standard Camera Calibration preset.

One of the lesser known features in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is Camera Calibration in the Develop module. Different camera sensors render color differently. Camera Calibration was developed to enable photographers to adjust the white balance, hue and saturation to “calibrate” the image so it matches more closely with what they intended when it was originally captured.

It’s an adjustment that can be done using other controls in Lightroom, but I tend to try different Color Calibration presets right off the bat to see if they get me closer to how I want to image to end up looking. If so, it gives me a different starting point for developing my image and saves me a lot of time.

South Maui Sunset with Lightroom "Camera Vivid" Camera Calibration preset.

Several presets are shipped with the product. If you shoot RAW, you’re presented with more choices of presets than if you don’t. They include ACR 3.1, ACR 4.4, Adobe Standard, Camera D2X Mode 1, Camera D2X Mode 2, Camera D2X Mode 3, Camera Landscape, Camera Neutral, Camera Portrait, Standard and Camera Vivid. Depending on what camera model you use and how you exposed your image, you’ll need to play around with them to see what they do for you.

One of the things I did a while ago was to create User Presets out of the different Camera Calibration presets, so I could simply mouse over the presets and get a preview of what the image will look like when I apply them.

To create these, choose a Camera Calibration present, then go to the Presets panel and press the “+” sign to create a new one, uncheck everything except calibration, name it with the name of the Camera Calibration preset and press Create. Then move on to the next Camera Calibration preset and do the same, and the next, until they’re all done.

You’ll find yourself using these more and more when you first enter the Develop module, and they may even inspire you to take the image in a direction you hadn’t thought of.

Try it and tell me what you think.

South Maui Sunset

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Earlier this month, I’d purchased a set of extension tubes and badly needed practice using them, so I dropped what I was doing, grabbed the camera, slapped on the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 with the 12mm, 20mm and 36mm tubes (she said the mantis was about 5/8-inch, so if I was going to get a face shot, I knew I’d need as much help as I could get) and followed her outside.

I spent most of the morning experimenting with different exposure modes and techniques. I posted the preliminary shots on my Facebook profile to get my friends to chime in, and a couple gave me some good suggestions on different things to try.

Here are the lessons learned from today’s work:

1. Use a tripod with the ballhead loose, so you can move around but still have some stability. What I keep telling my students was true again today—no matter how steady your hands are, your tripod is steadier. You still need a fairly fast shutter speed, but the tripod helps set your focus point. A monopod might have been more flexible, but I didn’t feel like moving my ballhead over to it. Next time.
2. You’ll need a fairly deep depth of field. I started out at f/5.6, went to f/8 and eventually ended up at f/11.
3. Set the ISO as high as you can tolerate (noise-wise) to keep the shutter speed as fast as possible. I haven’t bent my head around the focal length math with all the extension tubes (anyone want to give it a shot?) but I know the “1/focal length” rule always applies in setting the shutter speed, so I just went as high as I could.
4. My instincts as a wildlife and portrait photographer told me the goal was to get sharp eyes no matter what, so I sacrificed everything else to get those. I like a lot of bokeh in shots like these anyway.

Here are some of the better ones. Thoughts? Which do you like?

Tiny praying mantis. About 5/8-inch. Nikkor 105mm with 12mm, 20mm and 36mm extension tubes.

Tiny praying mantis. About 5/8-inch. Nikkor 105mm with 12mm, 20mm and 36mm extension tubes.

Tiny praying mantis. About 5/8-inch. Nikkor 105mm with 12mm, 20mm and 36mm extension tubes.

Tiny praying mantis. About 5/8-inch. Nikkor 105mm with 12mm, 20mm and 36mm extension tubes.

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First, be on a tripod. You need slow shutter speeds to get the light trails, so unless you want your photographs to come out like impressionist art (which can be quite nice), you’ll want to make sure your camera is rock steady.

Consider a cable release or remote trigger for your camera. You need to see the pattern and trajectory of the rockets, and your field of view is extremely limited if you’re looking through the viewfinder.

Also, even on a steady tripod, there’s always a chance you’ll cause some vibration when your finger releases the shutter, particularly with slower shutter speeds.

You need a zoom lens (200m or better) if you want tight shots of the flares and trails. On the other hand, if you’re looking for shots of fireworks with prominent features in the foreground, like city lights, you need to go wider.

Set your camera to Manual Mode for maximum exposure control. You need some good depth of field—around f/11 should do it. Set your shutter speed to 3 or 4 seconds. Take a few test shots and adjust the speed as necessary to avoid overexposure. Set your ISO to 100 or 200 to avoid noise. Turn off the autofocus so the lens doesn’t “hunt” and set the focus to infinity.

The rest is positioning and timing. You need to anticipate where the rockets are going to explode and when to release the shutter to get the flares and trails. Check your LCD to make sure you’re getting the composition and exposure you’re looking for.

My preference is to shoot in “Bulb” mode, where you can hold the shutter open manually for as long as you want (all the more reason to have a cable release). This gives you full control over your timing—press just before the rocket explodes, release after the light trails fade. Again, take test shots and adjust as necessary.

Wishing everyone a fabulous and safe New Year. See you in 2010.

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Fill flash used in this shot. Model: Maria Mazurova.

When I was out shooting the other day, it occurred to me that I still use a bunch of timeless rules of thumb I learned from various sources along the way; many so ingrained I don’t even realize I’m using them. I thought it might be fun to do a review.

A few years ago, I read an article in Popular Photography (that I can no longer find on their site) listing the ones I knew, and some I didn’t. Taken from my notes:

1. Sunny 16:
Bright, sunny day at f/16, shutter speed is 1/ISO. Extrapolated, f/22 at the beach, f/11 on cloudy-bright days.

2. Moony 11, 8, 5.6:
Shutter: 1/ISO
Moon Full: f/11
Moon Half: f/8
Moon Quarter: f/5.6

3. Avoiding Camera Shake:
Shutter: 1/focal length of the lens

4. No 18% Grey Card Handy (if you can’t trust the in-camera light meter):
Hold palm up facing the light, take a reading an open up one stop. (Skin tones vary.)

5. Depth Of Field:
Focus 1/3 of the way to maximize depth of field on a deep subject. The smaller the aperture, the shorter the focal length and the greater the distance, the greater the depth of field.

6. Largest Print With Digital:
Divide the vertical and horizontal pixel counts by 200. For critical applications, use 250.

7. Exposure:
Digital/transparency: expose for highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves.
Negative: overexpose 1 stop

8. Fill-flash:
Set flash’s ISO to twice your ISO, meter the scene, select f-stop, set autoflash to same f-stop. The resulting 2:1 flash-fill ratio will produce filled shadows 1 stop darker than the main subject.

9. Flash Range:
Double the distance, four times the ISO.

10. Megapixel Multiplier:
Increase the megapixels by 4 to double the resolution in a digital camera (to account for both vertical and horizontal).

11. Stopping Action:
Shutter speed 2 stops faster than the action moving toward or away from you, if perpendicular to the lens. For action moving at a 45-degree angle to the lens, use 1 stop faster.

12. Sunset:
Meter the area directly above the sun (without sun in frame). Down 1 f-stop to look like 1/2-hour later.

Did I miss any? What’s your favorite rule of thumb? Let’s see if we can start the “definitive” collection right here.

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ND Grad set up on a camera with a Cokin P-mount.

One of the secrets to the success of my landscape photography is the Neutral Density Graduated Filter—otherwise known as the ND grad. I learned about them from Bob Evans at one of his (highly recommended) workshops in Yosemite in ’05, and almost always use them in my landscapes.

A daylight sky can be several stops brighter than the foreground landscape, especially if the sun is in your frame, so if you meter the entire scene as a whole, chances are your foreground elements will be end up in silhouette. This is fine if that’s what you’re looking for, but if you’re trying to highlight your foreground features, you’ll need to open up the aperture, which will result in the sky being “blown out”, or totally white.

You can see the whole scene just fine with your eyes, because they are capable of perceiving many more stops of light than your camera. Photography is sometimes the art of compromise. In this case, you have to choose whether to sacrifice the sky or your foreground.

Divers about to enter the water at the Breakwater in Monterey, California, metered so that the foreground elements are in silhouette. In this case, the silhouette is what makes the photo.

If you want both, there are a couple of things you can do. One tried and true technique that many photographers use (including me, when I’m in a bind) is to take two good shots, one with the landscape exposed correctly, another with the sky exposed correctly, then join them together using image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop.

There’s nothing wrong with this, but it can take a lot of time and skill if the break between the two photographs isn’t an easy, clean one, like an ocean and sky. If it’s a complex treeline, you’ll have to create a careful selection around it so you can do a better job of blending the two shots.

Enter the ND grad. These are pieces of glass or plastic, half of which is clear while the other half is tinted. The tinted side comes in different shades of darkness, or densities—typically 1, 2, or 3 stops (usually denoted as ND 0.3, 0.6 or 0.9, respectively). They come with either “hard” or “soft” divisions or lines between the two halves to accomodate your compositions. If your scene has a clean line where an ocean meets the sky, a “hard” ND Grad with the line placed right on the horizon will do the trick. If you have a mountain range or a row of trees on the horizon, a hard line would be difficult to place, in which case you might want to use one with a “soft” line.

ND Grads come in two main types. One type is circular and screws onto the end of a lens like any other filter. This is fine, but it forces the photographer to compose the photo with the line in the middle of the frame, which can make the photo look static and less interesting.

Galen Rowell 3-stop hard ND Grad, P-mount, lens adapter.

The other type is rectangular, and slides into a slot in a holder, such as the Cokin “P” series. This holder is attached to the end of the lens by means of an adapter ring. This type of filter gives the photographer more flexibility in moving that line around than with the fixed, circular one. The filter slides up and down within the holder until the line is placed correctly.

The trick is placing that line correctly, so that it doesn’t show in the final photo. You don’t want someone looking at your photo and wondering why there’s a mysterious division between light and dark in the middle of an ocean or a lawn.

Here’s how it’s typically done:

A Maui Sunset scene metered as a whole, leaving the foreground in silhouette.

1. With your camera on a tripod and set to “Manual”, and take a shot of the scene with your light meter set to “Matrix” or “Evaluative” mode (manufacturers have different terminology) to see what it looks like. In the case of a sunset with the sun in the frame, the foreground elements will most likely be in silhouette. In other cases, depending on the intensity of the light, your sky may be blown out and look like one big “blinky” if your display is set to “Highlights” mode.

2. Set your light meter to spot metering mode and zoom in on a small area of sky. Take a reading.

3. With your light meter still set to spot metering, take a second reading of a small area in your foreground.

4. What’s the difference in the two readings? How many stops? This determines which ND Grad to use. Set your light meter back to Matrix or Evaluative mode.

5. Next, we need to decide if we should use a hard or soft ND Grad. Is your horizon a simple division between land and sky? Do you have a row of mountain peaks on the horizon? Your situation and composition will determine which one to use.

6. Compose your image again. Slide the chosen ND Grad into the holder. Now, to determine where exactly that line should go.

7. There’s a button, usually beside the lens mount, called the “depth of field preview”. When your shutter is not engaged, the aperture of your lens is wide open. Even if you’ve dialed in an aperture of f/16 or f/22, it will only take effect when the shutter is released, so you can’t really see what your chosen aperture setting looks like. This is what the depth of field preview button is for. When you press that button, you’ll notice the world suddenly go dark in your viewfinder. That’s because the aperture is now set to your chosen setting. Like being in a dark room, you need to take a few seconds to let your eyes adjust to the darkness in your viewfinder.

With the depth of field preview button held down, move the ND Grad carefully up and down until the line is where you want it to be. Remember, you’re looking for the spot where it will be the least obvious in the final photo. While you have the button pressed, take advantage of the stopped down aperture to check for any stray elements in your composition you didn’t see before. When your aperture is wide open, you can’t always see distractions that might appear when your chosen depth of field is in effect.

8. Double check to make sure your light meter is set to Matrix or Evaluative mode. Remember, you’re now “re-evaluating” the whole scene with the ND Grad in place. Set your exposure.

9. Take your picture. If all goes well, you should now have a fabulous, well balanced photograph.

Same scene as the photo above with the foreground opened up thanks to the ND Grad.

You can also use an ND Grad to create effects that might otherwise be difficult or impossible, such as blurring the flow of water in the foreground during a sunset.

A Makena sunset taken with an ND Grad, allowing me to slow the shutter speed and get a wispy, blurry effect in the flowing water.

I look forward to seeing some of the work you’ve created with ND grads. Post some links in the comments and let’s have some fun.

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Here’s a step by step walkthrough of how I created a montage I call “Hidden Falls” using Adobe Photoshop.

Dusk sky at Valley of Fire, Nevada.

I started with a single photograph of the sky at dusk in the Valley of Fire in Nevada, with the outline of the rocks in silhouette. I always loved this photo, but never had the opportunity to use it.

I created a new image sized at 4800 by 6000 pixels. It’s a good idea to give yourself a fair amount of room to work when you haven’t totally visualized your creation yet.

Bonus tip: it’s probably best to work in low resolution until you solidify your ideas and know which images you’re going to use, then create the final montage in high resolution. Working in high resolution can be slow and frustrating when you’re trying to be creative.

Another bonus tip: whenever possible, make your changes non-destructively, using adjustment layers or smart objects, and label your layers, so you remember what you did. This gives you a path of retreat when you don’t like the way things are going, and enables you to make changes to any adjustments you make.

Sky photo placed in new image with a black background.

Conveniently, the rocks were silhouetted in the sky photo, giving me a blank canvas to work with, so I filled the background layer in my new image with black, then copied the photo into the image as a new layer, resizing it with Free Transform until it fit at the top. Now I had a large silhouette of a mountain scene with a nice dusk sky.

Yosemite Fall as seen from the walking trail.

I found a photo of Yosemite Fall I’d taken from the walking trail, and brought it into the montage, moving it around until I found the right spot for it.

Image of the Yosemite Fall added as a new layer.

Screen blend mode eliminated the parts that weren't black, and a brush on a Layer Mask cleaned up the remaining artifacts.

The next step was to change the blend mode of that layer to Screen, removing all the black pixels against the sky. Then I added a layer mask and used a soft edged brush to paint away the artifacts that the Screen blend mode didn’t eliminate.

The concept was starting to take shape—a waterfall hidden away between a larger set of rocks. What I needed was some rock textures that I could blend in.

Detail photo of the face of El Capitan, Yosemite National Park.

Photo of El Capitan added as a new layer.

I knew just the perfect image for that—a detail photo of El Capitan I’d taken on that same trip to Yosemite. I brought that photo into the canvas and positioned it to the left of the falls, then resized it to fit using Free Transform. Then I changed the blend mode of that layer to Linear Light, giving it a rich, warm color.

I didn’t want to steal too much thunder from the falls themselves, so I decided to tone down the rock texture a bit by lowering the opacity of that layer to about 80%.

Then I added a layer mask and painted away the parts of the rock that didn’t belong in the sky and the bottom of the canvas, and varied the opacity of the brush to create some dramatic shadows along the edges of the rock textures.

Rock piece taken from an enlarged copy of the original falls photo.

Rock piece image flipped horizontally.

Now I needed more rocks on the right side of the falls. I tried using that same image of El Capitan again, but the textures didn’t blend with the rocks on the bottom of original falls image. I couldn’t find a photo in my collection that had better textures, so I decided to use the same image of the falls again. I enlarged it and cropped out a piece of the rocks.

There was some greenery that didn’t quite fit at the bottom of that piece, so I flipped it horizontally and positioned it where I could blend it in more easily. I brought the flipped piece into the scene and positioned it where I wanted it, to the right of the falls, then adjusted the color tones to match the rest of the canvas. Then I lowered the opacity to about 70% to blend it in further, added a layer mask and painted away the parts I didn’t need.

Time to play with the colors. I thought the sky was a little too bright, and didn’t really match the mood of the scene.

Almost done. What's missing?

I decided to try adding a Gradient Fill, creating an effect similar to using an ND grad filter in real life for the sky. I then added a Photo Filter adjustment layer to deepen the colors and give the sky a more surreal look.

I added a few more Photo Filter adjustment layers to change the colors in the rocks so that they would blend with the rest of the scene a little better. I decided to go for a warmer glow in the larger rock faces and a cooler tone in the rocks immediately next to the bluish part of the falls.

At this point, I was going to crop off the bottom part of the canvas and call it done, but the montage didn’t feel complete to me.

After some thought, I decided what the scene needed was a foreground element of some kind. I thought about adding in a grassy patch or perhaps the sandy part of a beach, but then it occurred to me—not sandy, watery. I needed a reflection.

Piece of the bottom cropped and flipped upside down.

I cropped a piece out of the bottom of the falls and flipped it upside down, then nudged it into place on the bottom part of the canvas.

I went into Free Transform and widened the bottom part of the cropped piece slightly, to give it the correct perspective (as if I were viewing the scene while standing in that location).

I lowered the opacity of that layer to about 75% (the water would be 1 or 2 stops lower exposure-wise in real life), then added a little Motion Blur and a Ripple effect to that piece, giving it a more realistic watery look.

I hope this has inspired you to try creating montages of your own, if you haven’t already. If you have any montages you’d like to share, post the links here. I’d love to see them.

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