March 17: 2nd attempt at multiple exposure layering

• Ug. I'm not happy with today's outcome, but hopefully I've learned some lessons and know what to try next. I tried taking two different exposures and layering them in Picasa (under the Collage feature).
  
  
  

From Runners Up

• I set the camera on the table and tried very hard not to move it to take the two different exposures. That worked better than the last time, but I am unhappy with the other aspects of the picture.
• I tried taking two VERY different exposures and combining them. Then I even increased the shadows on the darker picture, which I think helped with the background (and suprisingly didn't seem to have an effect on the bottle itself). Next time I will try exposures that aren't so far apart. I think I specifically washed out the bright picture too much, leading to the lack of color on the table.
• I will probably also try a different background next time. There may have been too much contrast in this since I got more sky in the picture than last time.

Here are the original two pictures if you're curious:

From Runners Up

50mm, f/2.2, 1/60s, no post-processing

From Runners Up

50mm, f/2.2, 1/1000s, increased the shadows a lot in Picasa

Well, live and learn! I may just determine that I actually need to buy Photoshop to do anything fancy like this (Picasa doesn't allow for as much adjustment as Photoshop), but I'm not willing to fork over that much money right now (I would need the professional edition). You can get it for cheaper as a student, so once I'm ready I'll probably take a class just to get it. :-)