Archive 2014 · Advice for Focus Stacking

W4w3
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Advice for Focus Stacking

Hi,

I’m looking for advice for certain issues I’ve encountered in my attempts at focus stacking. Especially the manual retouching after the automatic part causes trouble.

First, I’ll briefly list my equipment. My relevant gear consists of a D800 body, AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED, Kenko automatic extension tube set (DG) and a Gitzo GT3542LOS tripod with RRS BH-55 ballhead. The software choice for me has been Photoshop CC & CC 2014. Yesterday after frustrating myself for hours with Photoshop I also downloaded the trial version of Zerene Stacker, but have naturally very little experience with it yet.

As for my shooting, I’ve been interested in macro photography for some time now but am fairly new to focus stacking. By stacking images, I wish to extend depth of field while avoiding extensive diffraction caused by tiny aperture. Other methods in addition to increasing the F-number are necessary, too, especially when moving really close to the subject such as when using the extension tube set I have.

However, when trying to stack images in Photoshop (CC & CC 2014), I’ve noticed that the end result is far from perfect, containing “spots” visibly out of focus. Apparently something has to be done to fix these imperfections manually, but presumably due to my very limited skills with Photoshop I can’t figure out a systematic way to do the work. Can anyone recommend some video tutorials or other material that would help?

Thanks in advance!

Dec 29, 2014 at 06:17 AM

e6filmuser
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Advice for Focus Stacking

There are tutorials on the Zerene Stacker website.

Harold

Dec 29, 2014 at 09:02 AM

LordV
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Advice for Focus Stacking

Zerene should produce less artifacts and it is easier to clean them up after stacking using the built in editor.
In Photoshop you should be able to clean up a stack using the same method I use for manually focus stacking. See

https://www.flickr.com/groups/macroviewers/discuss/72157624267681728/

and just use the stacked shot as the master shot and the relevant slice shot as a donor.
Brian V.

Dec 29, 2014 at 12:28 PM

W4w3
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Advice for Focus Stacking

e6filmuser wrote:
There are tutorials on the Zerene Stacker website.

Harold

Thanks! Checked those out and they practically solved the problem.

Dec 30, 2014 at 02:47 AM

W4w3
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Advice for Focus Stacking

LordV wrote:
Zerene should produce less artifacts and it is easier to clean them up after stacking using the built in editor.
In Photoshop you should be able to clean up a stack using the same method I use for manually focus stacking. See

https://www.flickr.com/groups/macroviewers/discuss/72157624267681728/

and just use the stacked shot as the master shot and the relevant slice shot as a donor.
Brian V.

Thank you! With the help of the Zerene Stacker tutorials I was able to perform the task pretty simply.

By the way, have you noticed any benefits in manually doing the stacking in Photoshop relative to, say, Zerene?

Dec 30, 2014 at 02:50 AM

LordV
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Advice for Focus Stacking

W4w3 wrote:
Thank you! With the help of the Zerene Stacker tutorials I was able to perform the task pretty simply.

By the way, have you noticed any benefits in manually doing the stacking in Photoshop relative to, say, Zerene?

There are some situations where the stacking programs just do not seem to be able to align the images properly or there was just too much movement of the subject. In these cases you can get satisfactory stacking by doing it manually.

Brian V.

Dec 30, 2014 at 04:38 AM


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