Show: Focus Stacking or Bracketing
- Thread starter Conrad
- Start date
brerfox
Mu-43 Regular
Focus stacking is probably the only way to get photos like this. The EM-1 II with it's electronic shutter does a great job. In the first shot of this stack, only the stigma was in focus. There were 23 shots in the stack. Processed in Zerene Stacker.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Julia
Mu-43 Veteran
I've got two to share: did automatic focus bracketing in camera (Oly EM1.1), then stacked the images in Affinity Photo (Import → Stack) and manually painted in the different parts to get front to back focus. Since I hand-held the camera during exposure, I did move a little bit and using the automatic stacking would leave me with weird "halos" around the edges. By manually painting in each layer of the image, I could largely avoid that.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
brerfox
Mu-43 Regular
brerfox
Mu-43 Regular
@Julia have you compared hand-painting with Photoshop's Auto-Align and Auto-Blend? Should I just skip trying to learn those functions?
Julia
Mu-43 Veteran
Hey there! I can't speak to how PS does it since I don't subscribe to Adobe's services. I intentionally picked Affinity because it's a one-time payment app, not a subscription service.
I would suggest you try PS's automatic features first. Best case scenario they'll do the trick for you and you'll get a great result quickly. If you find that you don't like the result, then you can still dive into YouTube to pick up the skills to do it manually. It's not difficult at all, just really time consuming.
So Affinity's "File | New Focus Stack" is not good enough to learn either? Bummer.
Julia
Mu-43 Veteran
Hey WaltP, not sure what you mean–sorry. You asked about Photoshop, not sure what our Affinity question is? Maybe move it to direct message, don't want to hijack the thread.
- Joined
- May 5, 2014
- Messages
- 5,174
- Real Name
- Ron
I think the reference to having to paint was because it was hand-held. If you use a tripod and the subjects do not move - Affinity's focus stack is very good.
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2017
- Messages
- 1,076
Young leaves of what I believe is island scrub oak (Quercus pacifica) though, as is often the case for botanical stacks, I'm not finding references which show comparable levels of detail across leaf development stages so there is some uncertainty over lobe development, hair retraction, and chloroplast infill. 76 4k post-focus frames shredded with ffmpeg and stacked using Picolay.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2017
- Messages
- 1,076
80 frames 4k post focus and Picolay as usual with halo reduction in GIMP. Has anyone worked out a method they like for local contrast enhancement in outer haloed areas like gauzy zones here? I'm using a contrast mask layer to mitigate the halo but it isn't entirely successful.
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Links on this page may be to our affiliates. Sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.Mu-43 is a fan site and not associated with Olympus, Panasonic, or other manufacturers mentioned on this site.Forum post reactions by Twemoji: https://github.com/twitter/twemojiCopyright © 2009-2019 Amin Forums, LLC