Stacked!

[FrankMi]

Another beauty Andrew! Thank you for sharing your setup.

[Glenn NK]

Hi Glenn, I find with the black backdrop, I still use a flash, even if shot outside. Then I can pump up the shutter speed, and the background always shows up as black. I'm not sure if you care or not, but that's what I do!

Andrew:

It's going to be hard to pretend you're not interested in flower photography with a shot like that.

Two flashes? The only flash I have is mounted on my 30D.

This one was done without a black backdrop - well it was black, but the shot was taken at 8:05 pm July 28, with flash - next to tall trees at Government House. Because of the limited range of the onboard flash, the BG came out black.

It's a three image stack shot at f/11 - I didn't do too well as the rear petal is soft.

[Stagecoach]

It's a three image stack shot at f/11 - I didn't do too well as the rear petal is soft.

Glen, I think you did well. There's a bit of a missconception at times that with stacking 'all' of the subject has to be in focus.

I consider certain subjects such as flowers are more interesting if parts are OOF and as with this result the most interesting part is very clearly all in focus.

[ajohnw]

Yes to the Helicon Focus question. People do use it. Another option but unlike Zerene it comes in several price dependent flavours. There are others about as well some completely free. Some time on google should bring them up.

The amount of a subject in or out of focus can get rather technical. My main interest in the area relates to microscopes but it takes a long time to collect the gear together. I'm more or less there now. Sorting out white balance and exposure times comes 1st though. While waiting for the gear to crop up I spent time looking at other peoples results and subject matter and came to certain conclusions. Periodically I meet some one who is a an expert in this area and went through the following with him. He just smiled and said yes it's basic microscopy really. The only real difference in the microscope area is that F numbers up to 0.2 can be used so things get a bit extreme. The optics can also be very precise but just like camera lenses the quality varies. All I said is that a lot faster F number is needed for photography as the contrast at the theoretical resolution is so low. This has an effect on suitable specimens and is why insects are so popular.The detail in them can be coped with fairly easy. The microscope world uses the term numerical aperture rather than F number but that doesn't matter really.

The fact that resolution is dependant on F number has already been mentioned. This in turn means that showing all of the detail in a subject needs a certain F number to be used. Unfortunately it isn't that simple. The resolution that diffraction implies only gives about 8% contrast when the detail in the subject has 100% contrast. This means that a much faster F number has to be used in practice to get good results. It would take too long to go through how this aspect is usually described but there is plenty of info on MTF curves on the web. Two terms are used relating to photography MTF50 and MTF Rayleigh. The latter is the theoretical resolution limit were contrast is very low. MTF50 is the point where the contrast is 50%. The graphs are general and one single graph applies to any optic which can cause some confusion. Contrast starts at 100% and falls to zero just past the MTF Rayliegh point. The bottom axis is multiples of that resolution. Ancient wisdom states that detail in a photo must not need resolution past the MTF50 point. As optical quality varies and that also reduces contrast even that level of resolution may be of no real use. As the contrast is still reduced anyway even with perfect optics people tend to use as fast an aperture as they can. This again makes insects attractive subjects and why shots may use a surprisingly high number of images in the stack. Basically because contrast fall in more or less a straight line there can't be such a thing as too many in simple terms.

Flowers can be very disappointing. Another aspect shown by this shot. The lovely detail and colours can look rather strange when large high resolution shots are taken. They only look good substantially reduced to more like life size. A magnifying glass can be handy to get some idea what the shot will looks like. Here maybe straight ordinary high depth of field macro photography is better or stacks of only 2 or 3 shots etc. I've posted a full res shot but if reduced the dots that make up the colours will hopefully be easily seen. Some flowers look awful at larger sizes.



This links shows the effect far more clearly http://www.23hq.com/ajohnw/photo/8345688/original This one isn't too bad but some are terrible. I must have deleted my worst example.
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[Andrew76]

Thank you Frank, and Glenn, the comments and support are great! And thanks for all the helpful information too, this thread could be turned into a tutorial!!

I'm going to keep trying, and I'll keep you posted.

[rawill]

Agreed

[DanK]

There's a bit of a missconception at times that with stacking 'all' of the subject has to be in focus.

Even though I often prefer to keep the entire flower in focus, I agree that this is not always what one wants, and when you want something out of focus, stacking software can be very useful. That is, if it has the retouching capabilities that Zerene has.

I often deliberately create a larger set of images than I think I want. Then I go through them slowly (LR is great for this), deciding how far back I want the in-focus range to go. I then stack using only those images. However, sometimes what you want out of focus is too close to what you want in focus. That was the case with the hibiscus below. I did not want the petals in the background in focus, and portions of them were. So, I loaded the whole set into Zerene, and I painted from an out-of-focus image onto the background in the stacked image.

[rawill]

Yes to the Helicon Focus question. People do use it. Another option but unlike Zerene it comes in several price dependent flavours. There are others about as well some completely free. Some time on google should bring them up.
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I found CombineZP, but it does not seem nice to use.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Robin,

CombineZP is a very popular programme and some on other well respected forums even rate it higher than Zerene having done and posted comparison tests. I don't want to start a debate on which is best (I'm sure they all as with everything else have their good and poorer points) but as a user of ZP after using it for a while found it simple to use.

[Andrew76]

One more question. I know and understand the physics of why certain colours turn out looking like crap in sRGb, and aRGB output, but is white also a concern? I'm having some issue with my macro stacking experiment last night, using a white rose. It didn't even occur to me that this may also cause problems.

Or is it something completely different? Or am I missing something? Thanks!

[ajohnw]

When some one mentioned a tutorial I don't think they looked - unless it was very recently added

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...s-stacking.htm

The wiki is often a good source of applications for tasks such as this one

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking

This is also another feature built into Fotoxx for "simple" focus stacking in more normal circumstances where only a few images are required. Alignment and scaling are manual. Only runs on Linux systems though

It seems it's built into the gimp as well - filters - combine - depth merge
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[Andrew76]

When some one mentioned a tutorial I don't think they looked - unless it was very recently added

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Oh, I knew it was there, I've read it several times! I just thought a lot of the information provided in this thread was also quite helpful.

[rawill]

When some one mentioned a tutorial I don't think they looked - unless it was very recently added
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Thank you for the links.
I found the first tutorial excellent.

And no I hadn't used the search function.

And so I have just ordered a tripod!~!

Can I also say, when I first came on here I only read articles and forums, but it was so bewildering I gave up for a bit then came back.

I did not have enough "foundational knowledge" to understand what I was reading, now it is improving, and I am understanding more.

This is not a criticism, it is just how it is with me on any new subject, whether it be tunign car ecus, or doing university studies in a new subject.

So that is why some of us ask dumb questions, and forget to use the search function to find stuff.

Great forum this, very helpful contributors.

[rawill]

Hi Robin,

CombineZP is a very popular programme and some on other well respected forums even rate it higher than Zerene having done and posted comparison tests.

Thank you for the post, Maybe it is that to me, it doesn't seem to present as well.
I like the way Helicon puts the tree of photos in the panel to the side.
I have absolutely no idea about its performance technically, and probably never will.

I am going to keep on with Helicon, then try Zerene, and Combine then decided what to do.

[DanK]

One more question. I know and understand the physics of why certain colours turn out looking like crap in sRGb, and aRGB output, but is white also a concern? I'm having some issue with my macro stacking experiment last night, using a white rose. It didn't even occur to me that this may also cause problems.

Or is it something completely different? Or am I missing something? Thanks!

Almost all of my experience is with Zerene. I have stacked only once or twice with CS5 and a few times with CombineZ. So, my experiennce may not generalize. However, with Zerene, I have had no problems with white balance. The faster stacking method, which also is best for fine detail, PMax, tends to lessen saturation, but the DMap method seems to be pretty good at maintaining colors.

Here is my workflow for stacking:

--import to LR, set WB. If necessary, adjust exposure.
--export at 16-bit TIFFs, leaving them in LR's ProPhoto color space.
--stack in Zerene. The colors will all seem off because zerene does not adjust the screen display for ProPhoto.
--Import the stacked image into LR. The colors look fine, with the caveat about saturation.
--Continue editing. Export from there to CS6 if necessary.

[Andrew76]

Hi Dan, sorry - I meant with the actual colour white. Not white balance. I had some shots turn out very similarly to what purples, and reds turn out like because some of the naturally occurring pigments in flowers cannot be expressed in sRGB. But I thought white was in the centre of the gamut, and so wouldn't be an issue.

Which is leading me to believe it's not the same problem as the reds, and purples.

[Andrew76]

Hi again - would someone be able to help me one more time?

In lay terms, what is the difference in aligning methods in CS5/6? The stacking tutorial on this site recommends that you select 'Collage', but I've watched a few online tutorials that say stick with 'Auto'.

I'm sure it's something to do with a complex algorithm that is way over my head, and I don't really care to know the specifics, unless of course it's really pertinent to understanding the outcome. But I am having some issues with a couple of macro flower shots, and am not happy with the outcome. This may have to do with the program's Auto Blending algorithm too, but I would like to better understand how the aligning works.

OR, should I just stop being such a cheap-skate, and buy Zerene - which I currently have open on a browser tab, ready to buy, just can't seem to pull the trigger!!

Thanks again!

[DanK]

Andrew,

I think Zerene has a free limited-term or limited-function demo you can download. If so, why not try it to see what you think? If you do, I recommend exporting 16-bit TIFFs to input into it.

Some stacking methods wash out colors, and some distort textures. In the online materials for Zerene, Rik (the program's author) explains that the PMax algorithm in Zerene provides more detail but does alter saturation. After many tries, I have decided that the slower DMap option almost always produces superior stacks of flowers in terms of color and texture. It certainly provides enough detail.

The two methods differ in terms of susceptability to artifacts. For that reason, Zerene allows you to do both and to retouch from one stacked image to the other, rather than only from one single image to a stacked one. However, I have almost never had reason to do that.

Dan

[Andrew76]

Once again, thank you for the advice. I think I might do just that!

[FrankMi]

Hi again - would someone be able to help me one more time?

In lay terms, what is the difference in aligning methods in CS5/6? The stacking tutorial on this site recommends that you select 'Collage', but I've watched a few online tutorials that say stick with 'Auto'.

I'm sure it's something to do with a complex algorithm that is way over my head, and I don't really care to know the specifics, unless of course it's really pertinent to understanding the outcome. But I am having some issues with a couple of macro flower shots, and am not happy with the outcome. This may have to do with the program's Auto Blending algorithm too, but I would like to better understand how the aligning works.

OR, should I just stop being such a cheap-skate, and buy Zerene - which I currently have open on a browser tab, ready to buy, just can't seem to pull the trigger!!

Thanks again!

For CS5/6 I've played with both, in fact, I experimented with all of the options and found that for the images I was stacking, Auto worked best. I suspect that choices other then Auto would be more appropriate for some images than for others.

In every case, however, I found that I can improve the stacked image by manually comparing the result with each of the original images and touching up the out-of-focus 'holes' where CS5 hadn't made the best choice of image for focus every specific location.

I did download Zerene but ran out of time on the free trial to really get good at making the correct processing choices as I had very little free time at that point. When I do my next stacking project I will likely order Zerene and take the time to learn it.

I'm looking forward to seeing your future results as your skills continue to improve Andrew!