GIMP: Poor man's HDR

A summary of Understanding digital blending:

• Take two separate frames of the scene. They should be exactly the same except for the lighting. Take them with 2/3 f-stops between them. One will show the shadows and other the highlights.
  • Set the camera to Aperture priority (to prevent change in field of depth) and manual focus.
  • Might be helpful to use a tripod.
• Paste the dark frame on the light frame. The light image becomes the background and dark image becomes a new layer on top of it.
• Now there are two methods:

Painted mask method:

• Add a layer to the dark foreground image: layer / add layer mask / full opacity (while)
• Select the paintbrush tool and choose a large brush.
• Start painting over the dark area of the image; try to expose the underexposed parts. Painting on the dark-mask will remove parts of the dark image. Dont go too close the light areas.
• Then select a smaller brush and do the dark-light edges.
• This method allows one to precisely control what to expose.

Layer mask method:

• This one is a black magic :)
• Add a layer to the dark foreground image: layer / add layer mask / full opacity (while)
• Click on the background layer, copy it.
• Select only the white mask (press ALT and then click the while rectangle). Press CTRL-V to paste the light image on the mask.
• Gimp creates a floating pasted layer, right click and say "anchor layer". A B&W mask image is displayed.
• Add a gaussian blur with 40px radius (Filters / Blur / Gaussian blur)
• (Optional) Edit the curve of the background image.
• Flatten image (merge layer with the background layer).
• Voila! I was amazed with the results. Now I will make bracketing the default mode in my camera.