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Light_In
Known Participant
June 24, 2012
Answered

Focus Stacking does not work

  • June 24, 2012
  • 4 replies
  • 27753 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:

  1. Open each of the images I want to stack.
  2. 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.
  3. 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

    4 replies

    gmat07
    gmat07
    Participant
    April 1, 2018

    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
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 1, 2018

    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
    gmat07
    Participant
    April 1, 2018

    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
    January 23, 2013

    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
    June 24, 2012

    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
    June 24, 2012

    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
    Noel Carboni
    Legend
    June 24, 2012

    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 Carboni
    Noel CarboniCorrect answer
    Legend
    June 24, 2012

    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

    L
    Light_InAuthor
    Known Participant
    June 24, 2012

    Noel, after looking through several (CS5) tutorials I found one that used the Load Files into a Stack function.

    This worked very well.

    No, it had nothing to do with the noise level.

    I have tried the process with several images including 3 downloaded files that were used in one of the tutorials. The process fails on both my home PC and my travel laptop.

    It never selects any part of any of the layers. The result is that the only thing that remains visible is the first layer.

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