removing individual file from stack

@palitorj 

Sorry for taking a while to get back to you. The answer to your automation question is you can't automate from start to finish, i.e. from LrC to Ps to LrC, however...

From LrC you have to maunally select your photos to stack and send them to Ps using the Edit in > Open as Layers in Photoshop as you most likely do already. Once your photos are in Ps, you may be able to record the steps in an Action to align, create the focus stack and save the result. I haven't focus stacked in Ps before, so I haven't tried to create an Action to do it. You might need to experiment.

@palitorj 

Don't move the .tif files using File Explorer. It will not help you since they will remain in their stacks; you will only create problems with missing photos in LrC. File Explorer 'knows' nothing about LrC's stacking. Stacking is held in the catalog.

I'm assuming that you only want to remove the .tif files from their stacks, still leaving them in your catalog, but not in any of the 157 'focus' stacks.

In Library Grid view:

1. Select All Photographs in the Catalog Panel
2. From the Menu, select Photo > Stacking > Expand All Stacks
3. Activate the Metadata Library Filter
4. Set one of the filter columns to File Type and select TIFF
5. Select the .tif files you want to unstack ***
6. From the Menu, select Photo > Stacking > Remove from Stack
7. Close the Metadata Filter and check your 'focus' stacks

*** Be careful that the selected .tif files are in the stacks you want them removed from and not in other stacks. At step 5, if you have no other stacks in your catalog, you can press Ctrl+A to select all the .tif files. If there are any .tif files not in stacks, it will not matter if they are also selected; they can't be removed from a stack they are not in.

I hope this helps.