Inspirational Double Exposures {Tutorial}

A double exposure is a relatively simple photography trick that can be used to achieve great artistic effects.  I find double exposures fascinating and fun! Basically it’s only about combining two pictures into one. If you have worked with textures or overlays -layers that is - you’ll get the trick easily.

I was searching for a tutorial from internet and realized that nowadays many cameras have double exposure as a feature in camera. I don’t have that in my camera (Canon 700D), so I have to create my double exposures by editing.  And I don’t mind because creating the double exposure this way gives you so much more possibilities and lets you create your own vision.

Also I noticed that the tutorials were very different from each other and I discovered that the best result for me was just to play with the images in editing program. What I’m saying is that there are many ways to create double exposures in Photoshop; this is just how I did it.

Open Photoshop Element or Photoshop, Gimp etc. – you can create double exposures in any editing program that allows you work with layers. First create new layer – this will be the bottom layer you will be building the double exposure on. Then open both of your images (or actually as many as you wish…) and make sure your images are the same size.

Choosing photos to combine was the hardest part for me! There is no shortcut to learn which images go together than playing a whole bunch of photos! Try several combinations and be surprised by all the different looks you achieve. You can edit your photos first and I think it helps a little if both of your images are edited in similar way. Depends on the look you are desire to get but I discovered that images that were both centered did not work for me. I tried to find pictures for example one centered and other with good negative space.

Once you have your pictures selected go to your first image and copy & paste it on the blank bottom layer you created earlier. Then do the same with the second image. Keep the blending mode at normal, but reduce the opacity of the second image layer. I suggest you try something like 50% at first. Note that you have several options here, once again depending on the look you’re going for. You could prefer to choose either Screen or Lighten modes. Remember that this is all about your personal taste!

Basically you’ve just created your double exposure.  If you’re satisfied, you are done. Just flatten your image and save. Or you can keep on editing. Add layer masks for both images and paint off some of the top layer from the bottom layer and vice versa.  You’ll want to use a black paint brush around 20-30% opacity. This is just like working with textures – only your photos are now the textures you mask on and off to achieve the look and feel you want!

With this particular image I enlightened the image a little, added a vignette, some retro sun form Florabella Color & Light Actions and even a ‘Simple’ texture from Kim Klassen.

Thanks for reading! If you decide to try double exposures, I would love to see how they turn out. 

Link in comments please :)

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