Composting in Photoshop Elements photo editor|using Paint Shop Pro to edit photo

Home | Magic Photo Editor | PhotoShine | Elfin Photo Editor | DreamLight Photo Editor | Face Smoother

Composting in Photoshop Elements photo editor
I am trying to combine an underexposed and overexposed image to expand the tonal range of the resulting file. All techniques I have read call for layer masking; is this possible in Photoshop Elements 3?
RE:
Try using your Over exposed image as the Background image. Open a New Layer; then copy and paste the under exposed image to the new layer. Click on the eye of the Background layer to keep it from showing through. That way you will be able to see how the eraser tool is working. Now use the eraser tool on the parts of the top layer you think need improving. You can adjust the Opacity adjustment to vary the affect. Then Click on the background so that you can use levels adjustment to increase or decrease the amount you want to show through.

This is similar to using a duplicate layer when you want to treat parts of the image differently. i.e. some parts might need burning and some may need dodging.

Please help edit picture
My cousin just got married this week-end and I took the pictures. His father passed away 2 weeks ago. I have a picture of him and bride on the steps of the church...would like to scan in a head shot of his dad in the sky looking down on the church. Does anyone know how to do this. I am new to program and trying to learn it. Thank you so much for your help.
RE:
For anyone to help you I think we need a little bit more information ...

1) Are all the pictures digital, stored as e.g. jpg files on your computer? I ask this because you say scan in the head shot of his dad.

2) What photo editing programs (if any) do you have on your computer?

using Paint Shop Pro to edit photo?

Or should I crawl into the corner of shame for even having mentioned it?
RE:
No, I think a lot of folks use it. I use PSP8 and PS7. Some things I like to do in PSP. Some things I like to do in PS. It is not uncommon for me to use both programs on a single picture.

Choosing the Imaging Editing Software

There are several commercial programs for image editing available for the Macintosh and Windows computers. The most talked-about of these is Adobe Photoshop. However, at nearly $700 for the full Windows or Macintosh version, Photoshop is clearly not for every one. Cited below are several very good and effective tools which provide many of the features Photoshop provides at one-fifth to one-eighth the cost. Some of these products are very often bundled with scanners. If you expect to scan a lot of images, you might consider buying a scanner. Prices are low for excellent products, and as indicated, often bundled with the scanner are exellent image editors.
Below are hot links to a few of the most popular image editors for both Windows and Macintosh computers. The category of price is very subjective. Costly means over $300, Reasonable means somewhere real close to $100, Quite Reasonable means less than $50, Cheap means less than $30.
If you want to spend much time editing and preparing images for use on your website, one of these tools is a must. All of them provide the minimum set of tools required to size, crop, enhance, focus or blur an image and save it in the correct format with some choice over the file size. The hot links open a new browser window, so feel free to visit the home pages of these software programs