multiple exposures: a guest post / tutorial

Hey there! I'm Mary Ann, and I was so delighted when Eve, um, reminded me that I told her I would guest post :) Doesn't she have such an amazing blog?

Since I'm guessing that most of us here have an interest in photography, I decided to post a little photo-related tutorial.

Double exposures seem to have been a trend in the blogging world lately - I think it started with Carlotta. Most people make them with Photoshop, but for those of us who aren't lucky enough to own it, there's an easy and free alternative: it's called Pixlr. Today, I'm going to show you how I make my own double exposures online, the free and easy way. Let's get started!

First, you're going to want to open up Pixlr.com. Once you're there, click the link to open the photo editor.

(By the way, you can click on any of these pictures to view them larger.)

Click "Open image from computer," and find one of the pictures that you'd like to make into a double exposure.

I picked this one I took of the sky the other day. I like to keep the pictures pretty simple so there isn't too much to look at... some double exposures can just make your eyes hurt!

Now you need to add your second picture. Go to Layer > Open image as layer, and you can pick a new image to open from your computer. I picked this goofy one of my brother - I think he'll look cool, floating in the sky. :)

Your second picture should be completely covering up your first - we'll work on that.

On the bottom left corner of the Layers menu on the sidebar, you'll see a little icon with an arrow next to it. Make sure that your top layer (Layer 1, not the background) is highlighted, and click the icon to open up the layer settings.

Ready for the fun part? All you have to do is adjust the opacity to around 50% and, presto, you have a double exposure!

I like to add a little bit of contrast to mine by going to Adjustment > Brightness & Contrast, just to give everything a little extra pop.

To finish up, just flatten the image by going back to the Layer menu...

and then save it to your computer!

Here's my finished product:

It's not the best one I've ever made, but still, it makes me smile!

If you want to see more of my photo experiments, you can visit me at my main blog here. If any of you try this yourself, leave me a link in the comments - I'd love to see what you come up with!

Thanks again, Eve, for letting me guest post. :)