focus stacking in photoshop

starky987 · February 23, 2008

I've been wanting to try focus stacking but wasn't sure where to begin. Could someone explain how to do it using photoshop cs3? thanks

BPerron · February 23, 2008

starky987 wrote:

I've been wanting to try focus stacking but wasn't sure where to begin. Could someone explain how to do it using photoshop cs3? thanks

I am sure that if you googled you would come up with a ton of links...

pathfinder · February 24, 2008

Starky, it is my understanding that Focus Stacking is not usually done in PhotoShop itself, but in other image editing software that has an algorithm to enable focus stacking.
To do focus stacking by stacking multiple images in layers and then manually masking them to eliminate all the OOF areas could be done in PhotoShop, but might not be as satisfactory and take quite a bit of effort.

Googling Focus Stacking software produces Instant Results

-

First link is to dgrin itself - http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=34700 - where Lord Vetinari recs Helicon Focus

Another software program is CombineZM a Windows based stand alone program.

The third link I found with Googling, is on Wikipedia which lists CombineZM, Helicon Focus, Extended Depth of Field, PhotoAcute Studio, and Stack Focuser.

Interestingly, PhotoAcute Studio is available for OS X, unlike CombineZM and Helicon Focus, both of which are Windos based.

I am interested to hear anyone who has experience with any of these programs.

Focus Stacking Software is really part of Image Editing, not really shooting Technique, so I am moving this thread to Finishing School as I feel it is more appropriate there.

There is a thread about focus stacking with CombineZM by L Vetinari here

troutstreaming · March 8, 2008

pathfinder wrote:

Starky, it is my understanding that Focus Stacking is not usually done in PhotoShop itself, but in other image editing software that has an algorithm to enable focus stacking.
To do focus stacking by stacking multiple images in layers and then manually masking them to eliminate all the OOF areas could be done in PhotoShop, but might not be as satisfactory and take quite a bit of effort.

Googling Focus Stacking software produces Instant Results -

First link is to dgrin itself - http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=34700 - where Lord Vetinari recs Helicon Focus

Another software program is CombineZM a Windows based stand alone program.

The third link I found with Googling, is on Wikipedia which lists CombineZM, Helicon Focus, Extended Depth of Field, PhotoAcute Studio, and Stack Focuser.

Interestingly, PhotoAcute Studio is available for OS X, unlike CombineZM and Helicon Focus, both of which are Windos based.

I am interested to hear anyone who has experience with any of these programs.

Focus Stacking Software is really part of Image Editing, not really shooting Technique, so I am moving this thread to Finishing School as I feel it is more appropriate there.

There is a thread about focus stacking with CombineZM by L Vetinari here

I have been playing with the Photoacute Studio demo this last week and will likely get a license, but for now expect to use it more for the HDR and noise reduction/acuity applications. I did not have any images shot specifically for focus stacking sitting around and the macro sets that I tested were not optimized for focus stacking as they had differing focal planes only because of my drifting on and off the desired focal plane target. If I get a chance to play more will post my findings, but as the demo is free and the computation time involved long, suspect that you can likely draw your own conclusions before I will get a chance to revisit the macro side of the program.

Andy

sixthcrusifix · August 29, 2009

Actually NO
EDIT: Oops, Didn't realize how old this thread was. Sorry.

focus stacking in photoshop

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