BlendIt support

A little help with
your next blend.

Installation, layer controls, and help finding your finished image in Lightroom Classic.

Installation Layer controls Saving & import Troubleshooting Contact support

Install on Mac or Windows

Download your platform’s package. Use the BlendIt downloads. Extract the complete ZIP into a permanent folder. Keep BlendIt.lrplugin, its bin folder, and all included files together.
Add the plugin. In Lightroom Classic, choose File → Plug-in Manager → Add. Select the actual BlendIt.lrplugin folder and confirm that BlendIt is enabled.
Select 2–50 photographs in Library. Connect the drive holding the original files. Choose Library → Plug-in Extras → BlendIt — Combine Selected Exposures.
Arrange and blend. Lightroom renders your current Develop adjustments into temporary source images, then opens the BlendIt editor.
Choose a destination and save. Select TIFF or JPEG and check the visible save path. Save Composite opens the platform’s save dialog. A completion message gives the final path and Lightroom import result.

Mac: macOS 12 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel. The current development build is ad-hoc signed and not notarized. Windows: Windows 11 x64, unsigned Preview 6 with its runtime included. No separate Python, .NET, or ImageMagick install is required to use the plugin.

Updating? Close an open BlendIt editor, replace the installed package, then use Reload Plug-in in Plug-in Manager. Check its Path field so you update the registered copy. On Windows, keep the installation path free of % and ! characters.

Make the stack your own

The first row is the base. All other visible layers contribute in stack order.
Control	What it does
Select layers	Click one layer. Shift-click a second to select a range. Command-click on Mac or Ctrl-click on Windows adds or removes individual layers. Select All selects the whole stack.
Blend mode	Choose any of the 18 modes for the selected overlays. Unselected layers keep their own modes. The base always renders Normal. Mixed means the selection has different settings.
Opacity	Controls selected layers’ contribution from 0–100%. For a conventional Lighten star-trail stack, set the base and overlays to 100%.
Reorder / Make Base	Drag a row’s handle, use the arrows for a single layer, or Move to Top · Make Base. A selected group can move together. Reordering does not change the chosen canvas shape.
Transform	Select one layer to adjust scale, rotation, position, or flips. Drag the preview to reposition it. Reset Layer restores that layer’s settings.
Auto Blend	Two independent checkboxes, initially off: Soften overlapping edges and Match tones and colors. Either or both can be enabled. Softening covers all overlapping boundaries, including the base, with an adjustable Edge softness control (1–50%, default 20%). Tone matching affects overlays. Manual settings stay editable. Little or no overlap can leave matching unchanged. Turn both off for pure Lighten star-trail batches.
Visibility	Uncheck a row to exclude it from the composite without removing it from the list.

For star trails: align the source images beforehand, select all layers, choose Lighten, and set opacity to 100%. Fifty frames is a limit per composition, not a guarantee of speed or memory use for every camera resolution.

Preview selection

Mac version 0.1.14 and Windows Preview 6 start with all layers selected. With Preview selected layers only checked, selecting fewer layers refreshes the preview to those selected, visible layers. Uncheck it to preview the full composite. Save always combines every visible layer, regardless of selection. The checkbox changes preview scope only; eye icons control which layers are saved.

Canvas shape & filling the preview

Canvas → Preview area uses the whole black preview rectangle as the output canvas. Select one layer, then increase Scale to enlarge it across that canvas. Content outside the canvas is cropped. Choose Original photo, Landscape 3:2, Square or Portrait 2:3 for a shape independent of window resizing. The saved image has the same canvas shape as the preview. For multi-pass star-trail batches, use the same fixed canvas and output dimensions every time.

Saving & returning to Lightroom

Choose Folder changes the destination shown in the editor. Save Composite lets you confirm the filename. TIFF is 16-bit RGB with lossless compression; JPEG uses quality 95. Both use sRGB. Output is limited to 12,000 pixels on the long edge and 60 megapixels.

During saving, progress reports composited layers, then encoding and writing stages. Some stages use an animated bar because their completion percentage is not available.
BlendIt imports the saved file and adds it to the originating regular collection(s). Smart collections decide membership by their rules.
Saving in the last source’s folder allows below-source Lightroom folder stacking. Layer reordering does not change this original import anchor.
Sort order, filters, or collapsed stacks can affect visibility. Check the completion message and the saved folder if you cannot see the result.
If Lightroom import fails, the saved composite is retained. Use File → Import Photos and Video and select the exact path shown in the message.

Troubleshooting

Lightroom says “No script by the name BlendIt.lua.”

Remove the obsolete plugin registration in Plug-in Manager, then Add the actual current BlendIt.lrplugin folder and reload it. The current package deliberately retains the internal entry script DoubleIt.lua for update compatibility. Keep all supplied Lua files; do not rename them.

The menu is missing or the editor will not open.

Use Lightroom Classic’s Library module and confirm BlendIt is enabled. Check that you downloaded the correct platform package and extracted every file. On Windows, keep the entire bin folder intact and avoid percent or exclamation-mark characters in the installation path. If macOS or Windows blocks the current development build, record the exact message and contact support.

Why are my layer controls disabled?

Transforms, flips, reset, and the arrow buttons require one selected layer. Blend mode is disabled if only the base is selected, because the base renders Normal. Mode and opacity can be edited for a group. Controls pause during loading or saving.

Why do my stars look doubled?

BlendIt combines the rendered exposures but does not automatically align them. Check alignment, scale, rotation, and framing. Different focal lengths or camera movement may require preparation in another tool before compositing.

Can I blend 100 or more frames?

Blend up to 50 at a time. For pure Lighten at 100% with identical framing and dimensions, save each group as a 16-bit TIFF, then combine those TIFFs using Lighten at 100%. Avoid extra edits between passes. Other modes can give different results when split into batches.

Saving takes a long time or fails.

Full-resolution work can be much slower than the preview. Check free disk space, destination permissions, and the output-size limit. Try a smaller long edge or fewer frames to identify memory pressure. Leave the editor open while saving. A failed save keeps the editor available so you can choose another folder and retry.

The saved image is missing from my collection.

Check the exact path and status in the completion dialog. If imported, search by filename or check its folder, filters, sort order, and collapsed stacks. Smart collections may exclude the new image. Folder stacking does not force the same ordering in a collection.

What does Auto Blend do?

Soften overlapping edges feathers image boundaries over prior visible content. Match tones and colors makes bounded global adjustments from overlapping areas. Neither option selects subjects, aligns frames, stitches panoramas, or stacks focus. The isolated preview uses its included layers as the matching reference; switch to the full preview to judge the complete saved blend. Both options add processing work; leave them off for an ordinary brightest-pixel Lighten stack.

Which metadata is kept?

BlendIt creates a newly rendered image and does not promise to copy the source camera, GPS, keyword, or copyright metadata. Check and add any metadata you need in Lightroom before exporting or sharing the composite.

Contact support

Have a question, a bug, or an idea? Include your platform, software versions, frame count, output format, and the steps that led to the issue.

A little help withyour next blend.