merging 2 pics

[marky.b]

last yr i was shooting fireworks at blackpool.
i met a fellow togger and spent the evening shooting with him,
turned out he was a pro called tim gartside he was a great guy and gave me loads of help and tips, a quick google when i got home revealed that he had written a f ew photography books as well as running photo courses.
anyway he was shooting the pier before the fire works started and then he did the fire works and merged them
this is a link to one of the shots he did whilst i was with him

http://timgartside.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/blackpool-fireworks-photoshop/

as i took similar shots that night
i was wondering how to do it
i tried in cs5, but not very successfully

 

[Adey]

Its easy Marky

Open Photoshop>File>scripts>Load images into stack

I'd have the firework photo on the top and the pier underneath.
Make sure the top layer is selected, hold Alt and click the layer mask button at the bottom of the layers window, this will put a mask on and automatically fill it with black (thus hiding the fireworks for now. Make sure the black mask is selected and using a white brush 'paint' in the fire works in the sky.
When your happy right click on a layer and select merge visible/merge down whatever.

Done!

That photo is super good, i love it, hooray for the gartmeister!

 

[chetanls]

Adrian has given a very good brief on how to go about this.
To start off with, if your fireworks photo has dark skies without any skyline, try this:
After stacking the two pictures (with the fireworks on top), change the merge mode to "Screen" - this should remove the blacks and superimpose only the brighter part of the picture (i.e, the fireworks) ober the skyline.
This is just for beginners...depending on how your images come out, you may be better off following Adrian's steps above

 

[marky.b]

Thanks for the replys
I'll have ago later when I get in from work let u know how I get on