An Inspiring Evening with Nath Kaplan

At last Thursday’s Essex Photo Club meeting, Nath gave an inspiring presentation on texture layering in photoshop. This creative post-processing effect is accomplished by combining two image layers using Photoshop’s blending options. The background layer contains the primary image, while the overlay contains an image of a texture you’ve captured with your camera, or acquired from another source. Nath showed us some of the virtually infinite effects available by using different blending modes, altering the layer’s opacity, modifying the hue and saturation of the layer, and even painting with a solid color to subdue the texture where desired. Showing us layer masking was also a huge plus.

And all this got me to reminiscing about the days before I knew photoshop. When I committed to doing all my creative effects “in camera”, before I learned how to develop, dodge, burn, and print.

Nate mentioned “non-Photoshop” ways of of accomplishing this using Topaz and other tools. But when he first said it, what I heard was, “In Camera Effects”. And this got me to thinking about two features I haven’t used very much on my Nikon D610…multiple exposure and image overlay.

Multiple Exposure works just like it does in a film camera. You can adjust the exposure between the two images, but that’s about it. You take a photo, look around for a good texture to merge with it (neutral objects like asphalt and concrete sidewalk come to mind), adjust the exposure if needed, and snap the second shot. That’s it.

It’s limiting for sure, but I applaud Nikon’s decision to keep it that way and preserve the traditional film experience. Besides, there’s always Image Overlay.

IO allows you to select any two images on your card and combine them into a new image. This means you can modify the texture layer beforehand. And that creates a lot of options. It goes way beyond simple “multiple exposure”, but provides yet another “non-photoshop” way of pursuing this worthwhile creative effect. In fact, I’ll be including it as part of my class “Learning and Mastering your DSLR” at the Montclair Adult School this February.

Thanks again Nath!