Focus stacking how to
p.1 #1Focus stacking how to
Hello,
I took a photo which consists of three shots each focused on a different plane and then aligned and stacked together in PhotoShop, the result is ok but nothing exciting, I don't like the auto masking and some artifacts show to an inspection.
I am attaching the image, planes of focus are on the lower end corner of the window frame, edge of same frame on the right side and then on the rock in the background.
How would you stack the tree images considering I use LightRoom and PhotoShop?
Grazie
?s=eyJpIjo1MjA0MDI4MTk5MSwiZSI6MTc2NDY5NzgzMCwicyI6ImQ3MTM3NGZhNTU5YTcyYTQ1NGFhZWM0MDIzYjIxOWNjMGRiYTljNDIiLCJ2IjoxfQ">Faraglioni by Giovanni Aprea, su Flickr
I took a photo which consists of three shots each focused on a different plane and then aligned and stacked together in PhotoShop, the result is ok but nothing exciting, I don't like the auto masking and some artifacts show to an inspection.
I am attaching the image, planes of focus are on the lower end corner of the window frame, edge of same frame on the right side and then on the rock in the background.
How would you stack the tree images considering I use LightRoom and PhotoShop?
Grazie
?s=eyJpIjo1MjA0MDI4MTk5MSwiZSI6MTc2NDY5NzgzMCwicyI6ImQ3MTM3NGZhNTU5YTcyYTQ1NGFhZWM0MDIzYjIxOWNjMGRiYTljNDIiLCJ2IjoxfQ">Faraglioni by Giovanni Aprea, su FlickrDec 02, 2025 at 10:58 AM
p.1 #2Focus stacking how to
Lower left corner looks soft. Did you focus there? Otherwise looks good to me. Quite often you have to do some retouching. Also was your aperature set to one or two stops down from wide open which is where your lens is sharpest.
Dec 02, 2025 at 12:36 PM
p.1 #3Focus stacking how to
I don't remember the sharp details as the shot is from 2-3 years ago, normally I shoot in the f8 range, the aperture/window/frame or how we want to call it is quite diagonal vs the background and the position I can shoot from is obliged as the space is tight and if I want the rock in the middle of the window it can't be otherwise so what I might have done is focus somewhere on the left side which is the closest to the camera, then the right which might be a matter of 12-16" difference and then the background, when the sea is smooth I don't mind how the software does the masking with regards to water and background rock, what I don't like is the first two shots masking which in auto mode don't really do it.
I went back to the place a month ago and I picked the best series of three shots and would like to try a different workflow to stack them, I usually crop in LR, adjust highlights/shadows as there is quite a difference between the interior and exterior, details, texture etc etc, sync the changes among the three shots and open them in PS as layers, auto align them and then auto blend layers which is where the edges of the framing get a little messed up.
Grazie
I went back to the place a month ago and I picked the best series of three shots and would like to try a different workflow to stack them, I usually crop in LR, adjust highlights/shadows as there is quite a difference between the interior and exterior, details, texture etc etc, sync the changes among the three shots and open them in PS as layers, auto align them and then auto blend layers which is where the edges of the framing get a little messed up.
Grazie
Dec 02, 2025 at 12:51 PM
p.1 #4Focus stacking how to
GiovanniAprea wrote:
auto align them and then auto blend layers which is where the edges of the framing get a little messed up.
Auto blend often gets edges against distant backgrounds wrong in focus stacking. You have to go back and manually retouch them. Either duplicate your stack layers and blend in the correct frame that should have been used or recreate the pixels that the edge should have with a clone stamp type tool directly.
It's worse if your lens has a lot of focus breathing (magnification changes with focus distance) but it's still unavoidable.
auto align them and then auto blend layers which is where the edges of the framing get a little messed up.
Auto blend often gets edges against distant backgrounds wrong in focus stacking. You have to go back and manually retouch them. Either duplicate your stack layers and blend in the correct frame that should have been used or recreate the pixels that the edge should have with a clone stamp type tool directly.
It's worse if your lens has a lot of focus breathing (magnification changes with focus distance) but it's still unavoidable.
Dec 03, 2025 at 09:32 AM
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p.1 #5Focus stacking how to
Hello,
nope, the lens has very little focus breathing as obvious since the closest area I focus on is at a very short distance, PhotoShop handles that very well and I only loose a few pixels along the edge due to auto alignment, the issue is with the blending and auto masking, the edges of the frame are hard to manually edit if I wanted to edit the masks.
I have another stack of photos I took last month and I am gonna give it some more try, so far it seems that it gotta be done manually or semi-manually
Thank you
nope, the lens has very little focus breathing as obvious since the closest area I focus on is at a very short distance, PhotoShop handles that very well and I only loose a few pixels along the edge due to auto alignment, the issue is with the blending and auto masking, the edges of the frame are hard to manually edit if I wanted to edit the masks.
I have another stack of photos I took last month and I am gonna give it some more try, so far it seems that it gotta be done manually or semi-manually
Thank you
Dec 03, 2025 at 10:03 AM
p.1 #6Focus stacking how to
I would take a much larger number of images using the focus bracketing function of the camera and then blend them with Helicon focus. I suspect that the issue is that you only have a few images and perhaps they are not covering every part of the subject in focus.
EBH
EBH
Dec 08, 2025 at 04:52 PM
p.1 #7Focus stacking how to
Ciao,
the more the images the more I will have to deal with artifacts from blending sky and sea, I tried in the past, to get back from the shooting spot I have to climb 300 steps, believe me, I tried it all, I did HDR, shot same focus plane with three different exposures then blend the three HDR, did 5 focus points and so on but there always are side effects and at the end the simpler the better.
I can use PS only to align the three exposures as there is focus breathing no matter how good the lens is, it's a tiny bit only on the closest shot but it's there, after than I can create masks and manually add or remove to make the perfect blend but it takes literally ages, I am investigating a way to have PS create a mask for the background image, the rock along with sky and ocean and then two more, one for the left to first third from the left and one for the remaining and see how it looks but as of now I am working on my 14" laptop screen and it's a pain.
Grazie
the more the images the more I will have to deal with artifacts from blending sky and sea, I tried in the past, to get back from the shooting spot I have to climb 300 steps, believe me, I tried it all, I did HDR, shot same focus plane with three different exposures then blend the three HDR, did 5 focus points and so on but there always are side effects and at the end the simpler the better.
I can use PS only to align the three exposures as there is focus breathing no matter how good the lens is, it's a tiny bit only on the closest shot but it's there, after than I can create masks and manually add or remove to make the perfect blend but it takes literally ages, I am investigating a way to have PS create a mask for the background image, the rock along with sky and ocean and then two more, one for the left to first third from the left and one for the remaining and see how it looks but as of now I am working on my 14" laptop screen and it's a pain.
Grazie
Dec 09, 2025 at 01:45 PM
p.1 #8Focus stacking how to
I would use a minimum or 7 to10 shots for that scene. My Olympus/OM easily focus-brackets up to 999 shots and will focus-stack in-camera up to 15 shots. Photoshop does a great job of stacking the bracketed shots.
https://learnandsupport.getolympus.com/learn-center/photography-tips/landscapes-nature/using-focus-bracketing-and-stacking-in-landscape
https://learnandsupport.getolympus.com/learn-center/photography-tips/landscapes-nature/using-focus-bracketing-and-stacking-in-landscape
Dec 09, 2025 at 06:32 PM