STACKING SOFTWARE FOR MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY MANUAL
STACKING SOFTWARE FOR MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES

An 90mm lens with reversed 50mm achieves approx.

Nonetheless, they’re all in sharp focus, with no apparent artifacts. I made no attempt here to parallel the plane made by the aphid and the two dew drops. An f/22 image is noticeable less sharp than an image created at a “sweet spot” f/8 or f/11, demonstrable at 1:1 magnifications. Apart from rendering pleasing backgrounds of sharp subjects, focus stacking can benefit landscapes by improving on the loss of sharpness caused by diffraction. Again, great results, and in this case it’s something I’d never attempt manually. Focus Stacking with CombineZP, from 8 images.Īt left I’ve included a macro example, a CombineZP image of a flower focused in a raindrop.

STACKING SOFTWARE FOR MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY MANUAL

For portraits, an additional manual step that replaces the background may be warranted. Additionally, because the program selects the sharpest background, for floral portraits the program selects a background that is the least preferable. Also added were “mirrored” artifacts that increased the dimensions of the result, but a simple crop corrects that for the final image. There were some odd artifacts in OOF areas, which I’ve found can get extensive in some image sets.

The CombineZP program cranked through the five images and in a few minutes delivered an astonishingly perfect flower, completely in focus. After installing the software, I opened the program, clicked NEW, selected the Columbine images, and selected ALL from the pulldown menu. I then turned to CombineZP for an alternate solution. It took an hour to paint in the sharpest areas of each image to my liking-way too much work. I again tried manual methods, and this time I needed five progressively-focused images, which I placed in Photoshop one on top the other. The second flower portrait is more difficult because the flower is closer to the camera, has more depth, and the background is closer behind. In any case, a far stronger image results from the combined images because the distraction of an f/16 or f/22, high-DOF background is avoided (see upper left). I could have used a third image to paint in the flowers behind the stem (they are a bit OOF), but that’s an artistic choice (note that I also cloned out a lower, unopened flower). I then used an adjustment layer to paint in the sharp anthers and foreground pedal tips of the near focus image onto the one focused on the stem (If you’re unfamiliar with the technique of painting and erasing using adjustment layers, see Floral Portrait Conundrum). In Photoshop Elements 8, I stacked the two images in layers. The narrow DOF creates a lovely, extremely OOF background in both images. To combat this, I instead created two images, one focused on the stem and the other on the foreground anthers, both at f/5.6. Shooting at f/16 renders the entire bunch of flowers sharp, but ruins the pleasing OOF background. The Camas image (right) is a single image example of a busy background caused by stopping down. A manual method is useful for control-especially background control-of simple image sets. Example 1: Distracting background.Ī primitive (slow but effective) processing method for focus stacking is to do it manually, say in Photoshop using layers. Although the two examples that follow are of floral portraits, focus stacking has great utility for macro and landscape photography. A focusing rail is recommended for macro.Īvailable software includes Adobe Photoshop CS4/CS5, Zerene Stacker, Helicon Focus and freeware CombineZP. Stacking demands use of a tripod, although stacking software will align the images if they’re reasonably close.

STACKING SOFTWARE FOR MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES

The series is then stacked in software that selects the sharpest areas of each image and then flattens them into one. Focus stacking is useful for extreme DOF landscapes, and, contrarily, for floral portraits where increasing the depth-of field by stopping down destroys “bokeh”-that lovely, out-of-focus (OOF) background that makes a portrait sing.įocus stacking is achieved by creating a series of images at a relatively large aperture, with the focus for each image moving progressively through the subject. Focus stacking software selects the sharpest areas from multiple frames to overcome these limitations. Depth-of-field gets paper thin in high-magnification macro photography. Image resolution falls precipitously at high f-stops (f/22 and smaller). It’s a clever digital answer to lens optic limits that conspire to demolish resolution and depth-of-field (DOF). Example 1: Focus Stacking, from two images.įocus stacking is a relatively new digital imaging technique, especially useful for macro and scientific photography, and an occasional aid for landscapes and small portraits as well.

Stacking software for macro photography