![]() Black is no contribution white is full.įocus stacking (also known as focal plane merging and z-stacking or focus blending) is a digital image processing technique which combines multiple images taken at different focus distances to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field (DOF) than any of the individual source images. Three source images at different focus distances (top left) are combined with masks (top right) to obtain the contributions of their respective images to the final focus stacked image (bottom). This example is of a diatom microfossil in diatomaceous earth. Focus stacking (for extended depth of field) in bright field light microscopy. First two images illustrate typical DOF of a single image at f/10 while the third image is the composite of six images. Series of images demonstrating a six-image focus bracket of a Tachinid fly. ( June 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unreliable citations may be challenged or deleted. Please help this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. That product at the time never took off but now all the major brands of cameras offer focus stacking including Sony.Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. I did this 10 years ago when I first started experimenting with focus stacking and actually was testing a focus stacking device made by a company in Dallas. My advice if you are interested in purchasing Helicon Focus is to pay for the lifetime license. Now let’s take a look at Helicon’s blending of the same images: With Helicon Focus, the entire foreground was blended seamlessly with no hint of softness. Let’s take a closer look at just the dark foreground area of rocks where Photoshop clearly struggled: Photoshop’s blend of the dark foreground rocks was very inconsistent. I purposely processed this image a bit brighter to reveal the irregularities of the darker foreground blends. Some rocks are sharp while other areas are soft. Notice the lack of consistent blend in the foreground. All 28 frames were opened as a stack, aligned, then blended – here is the result: Photoshop blended frame. Here is the same image composited in Photoshop. Moreover, the entire process in Helicon is faster than Photoshop’s two-step method of opening as a stack out of Lightroom, then aligning and blending in Photoshop. On the other hand, Helicon Focus delivered consistent result from any stack I threw its way. What I found out after a week of working on files is that Photoshop is good most of the time but struggles when there are a lot of dark tones (such as the foreground of this 28-layer stack). ![]() What I wanted access to were the RAWS so I could use either Photoshop CC 2022 or Helicon Focus to assemble the frames. ![]() In short, I don’t care that the camera does not do the composite as that would be a JPEG file. One of the features I have been asking our engineers for that was included in this camera was the ability to focus stack and have access to the RAW files. I love guiding this workshop and as a bonus this year I got to work with the new Sony a7RV. I have returned from a three week journey to Iceland co-leading two workshops with fellow Sony Artisan Gary Hart. Twenty-eight frames composited with Helicon Focus Captured with Sony a7RV + 100-400mm (shot at 300mm) in Focus Stack Mode. Focus Stacking :: Photoshop or Helicon Focus? Sunrise-lit Mountain Near Vik, Iceland. ![]()
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