Focus stacking not working very well :-(

[ChrisDPage]

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction please as I cannot get focus stacking in photoshop working as I would expect.

I've tried a couple of online articles & steps appear to amount to  load images as layers, Edit>>auto-align layers, followed by Edit>>auto-blend layers but I must be missing something.......

Have a look at the attached screenshot - the left took < 5 mins in Affinity Photo, the right too around 30 minutes in photoshop (so yes performance is awful too)

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Please provide the images for testing. 

[ChrisDPage]

Thanks for replying, got lost in my spam folder but done a little more tinkering.

I've put the files here : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jvhlzqWtNpXy1msS6j8Os84otZ75cmwk?usp=sharing

However, the photos were taken on a tripod and I tried just auto-blend and that worked perfectly - and tried auto-align with various options and sure enough it is auto align that is where there is a problem.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Thank you. 

I can reproduce the unsatisfactory result for Auto-aligning and Auto-blending.

But Auto-Blending alone produces steps. 

I am afraid your example may just be »too much« for Photoshop … comparing the first and last image for example the difference in the represented parts seems significant. 

Splitting the images into smaller packages and aligning/blending those and then the results of those might provide a somethat better result, but regions towads the back of the leaf seems to »confuse« the process … 

A work-around might be blending with »Seamless Tones and Colors« unchecked and amending the Layer Masks manuallly. 

[ChrisDPage]

Thank you for looking - it's an interesting one as Affinity photo at a fraction of the cost produces spot on results in a fraction of the time - hopefully someone at Adobe will make it better going forwards 🙂