In general, the more photos you take, the better the results you can expect. Ideally, you'll want the depth of field to overlap from one image to the next. Make sure you take enough shots so that every point in the scene or on your subject is in focus in at least one of the photos. For macro photography, a focus rail works best, but if you don't have one, the focus ring on your lens works fine. With each successive shot in the series, turn the focus ring slightly to gradually walk the depth of field across your scene from the foreground to the background. Instead, set your lens to manual focus and begin and the closest focal point you need (which will often be the minimum focusing distance of the lens). Don't let the camera choose the focus points. To avoid it, use a cable release, or if you don't have one available, use the timer on your camera to delay the shot. Even with your camera mounted on a tripod, pressing the shutter button can cause camera shake. Mounting your camera on a tripod will not only prevent camera shake but will also make sure that each photo in the series is taken from the same height, angle and position so they can be easily aligned later in Photoshop. However, here's a few simple tips to help you take the best images possible so you'll get the best results from focus stacking. Since this isn't a photography tutorial, I won't go through the process of shooting the images in any great detail. Focus stacking actually begins with the images themselves, and it's important that the photos are taken with focus stacking in mind. I mentioned that focus stacking starts by loading the images into Photoshop, but that's not really true. By taking a series of shots, each with a different part of the scene in focus, and then blending them in Photoshop, you can bring the entire scene into sharp focus from the foreground to the background! If that sounds pretty amazing, well, the result can be just as impressive as it sounds.ĭownload this tutorial as a print-ready PDF! Photography Tips For Focus Stacking But it's also great for any situation when you're limited by the amount of light, forcing you to use a wider aperture which again narrows your depth of field. What you end up with is a single image where everything is in focus!įocus stacking is perfect for macro photography where it's virtually impossible to get your entire subject in focus due to the incredibly narrow depth of field, often measured in millimeters.

Photoshop then looks at each image and figures out which areas are in focus (yep, it's actually smart enough to do that), and it automatically creates layer masks to show only the in-focus areas from each image, hiding the areas that are not in focus. Then, we align the layers so that the size and position of our scene or subject in each photo matches up.

How does it work? As we'll see, we start by loading the images into Photoshop as layers which stacks them on top of each other. It takes the more narrow depth of field from each photo in the series and combines them into a much wider depth of field, one that's usually wider than you could ever achieve in a single shot. In other words, Photoshop doesn't just blend the images together it blends the depth of field from each image. In this tutorial, we'll learn how to do focus stacking in Photoshop! Focus stacking, or focus blending, means taking a series of images, each with a different part of your scene or subject in focus, and blending them together into a single image where your entire scene or subject is in focus.

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