Exposure matching

[nater973]

Affinity Photo Desktop. I started a Focus Merge, only to realize that the shutter speed was different in my two photos. Both photo A and B have ISO=800, f/5.3. However, photo A was taken at 1/160 and photo B at 1/100. Because of this slight difference, when I'm cloning using Focus Merge, the difference in light is evident along the edges. I'm thinking I'll need to edit one of the photos to match the exposure in the second before using the clone tool in Focus Merging.

Questions:

1. Am I correct that I can't compensate for or match the exposure while Focus Merging?

2. If I do need to edit one photo first, any suggestions on how to precisely match the exposure between the two (other than eyeballing it)?

Thanks for any help.

[stokerg]

12 hours ago, nater973 said:

1. Am I correct that I can't compensate for or match the exposure while Focus Merging?

 

That's correct

12 hours ago, nater973 said:

2. If I do need to edit one photo first, any suggestions on how to precisely match the exposure between the two (other than eyeballing it)?

You could try following a Colour Matching Tutorial like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1h2z7iMfhM  Which should help get very close and should be a better than eyeballing it.  I'm sure if anyone else has any suggestions they will post  

 

 

[nater973]

Thanks stokerg. I tried a different approach. Prior to focus merging, I used the Info tab and notated the RGBA values at a specific, bright X,Y coordinate in the lighter version of the image. Then I opened the slightly darker version and increased Exposure bit by bit, checking those same X,Y coordinates until they were almost identical with the lighter version. Then I saved both images as TIFF files and did the focus merge. Any differences were indistinguishable and it worked great!