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Answered

Focus Stacking does not work

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
June 24, 2012
4 replies
27712 views

I tried to find a CS6 forum in which I could post but could not find a forum that I was alowed to post in, so forgive me for coming here.

I have taken several photos with multiple focal points and I am trying to merge them in Photoshop CS6 but in every attempt I end up with a single layer that is used while the others indicate no selections at all.

Even when using just 2 images the process only uses the first image and it sets the mask to transparent.

Here are the steps I've been following:

Open each of the images I want to stack.
Use the Photomerge tool with Auto, Blend Images Together, and Add Open Files. This successfully creates a new image with multiple layers but areas are being selected.
Use Auto Blend Layers, Stack Image with Seamless Tones and Colors checked.

The obvious result is no change because only the first layer is being used.

What am I missing?

Tom

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Noel Carboni

I'd suggest using the File - Scripts - Load Files into Stack feature rather than Photomerge, as it's more directly what you're wanting to do.

Do your images have a lot of noise in them that could be misinterpreted by the stacking process as detail?

-Noel

gmat07

Participant

Hello guys,

I am totally new at Focus Stacking and would love to know if somebody as a solution for this miss match on the image.

Thanks

D Fosse

Community Expert

Yes, this is a problem with Photoshop focus stacking. I've seen a lot of these.

What I usually do now is to run the stacking - but keep additional copies of all layers so I can manually clean up these glitches later.

The core problem is that focusing moves the lens barrel, hence the viewpoint also moves - and not the camera body. This produces an equivalent of parallax error. There isn't a perfect overlay of the images. With a focusing rail you can keep the lens/image fixed, and move the camera body to shift focus plane. This avoids the problem.

There is dedicated software that is said to produce better results. Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus usually come highly recommended. They aren't free, though, and I've never tried them.

gmat07

Participant

Thank you very much D, I assume it was something on the software, will do try Capture One now to see if solves the problem, have you try it ?

Thanks

C

Cache Slinger

Participant

Tom,

I haven't tried it yet, but I just went to Photoshop CS6 help and did a search for the key words "Focus Stacking", then selected "Adobe Content Only". There were multiple returns, however here is the link to the top result, which if you scroll down, gives a step by step process sanctioned by the people who made the software.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WS1E1F68F7-54A2-4e12-9C4E-70B589A2B393.html

Hope this helps.

P.S. A fellow photographer gave me a demo on this today at work, using 17 images and a macro lens covering a distance of 17 inches. A bag of peanuts spread out on a table. The blending took a long time with our high end image editing processors, but the results were amazing.

- Brian

A

AnnShelbourne

Inspiring

It seems as if Photomerge when used for Focus Stacking is partially broken in CS6.

If I select images in Bridge and use Tools/Photoshop/ Photomerge, I do get a stack of Layers but the images do NOT auto-align.

However, if I choose Bridge/Tools/Photoshop/Load Files into Photoshop Layers;

then, in Photoshop: use Auto Align followed by Auto Blend, I do get a Stack with appropriate Masking.

Photomerge seems to be missing the AutoBlend Layers Panel and the "Blend Method/Stack Images" checkbox which you get when you do the Stacking in Photoshop one step at a time.

L

Light_InAuthor

Known Participant

CameraAnn,

Yes, this is EXACTLY what is happening.

Thank you for including the pictorial reference!

As indicated above, I learned this process from online tutorials that seem to work flawlessly in both CS4 and CS5.

Adobe, if you are watching this thread, you have a bug to fix.

Noel Carboni

Legend

I don't doubt you're seeing problems but my having made the process work says that it's not a simple bug. Can you put up some small copies of the images with which the problem can be reproduced?

-Noel

Noel CarboniCorrect answer

Legend

I'd suggest using the File - Scripts - Load Files into Stack feature rather than Photomerge, as it's more directly what you're wanting to do.

Do your images have a lot of noise in them that could be misinterpreted by the stacking process as detail?

-Noel

Noel Carboni

Legend

By the way, I just completed a focus stacking operation (starting with Load Files into Stack, then Auto Blend Layers) with 3 small test images and it seemed to work flawlessly:

-Noel

droblesphoto

Participant

Ive tried every method explained on here to focus stack some images and the result is the where all masks are completely black except for the first one. Ive focused stacked before in CS6 with no problem but CC seems to not work. Ive tried taking other simpler stacked images and results are the same.

Help Please!

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