new CamRanger

[chauncey]

Finally got it to work...most of the time anyway....does the stacking really well.
The PS CC aspect leaves a lot to be desired as shown in the 100% crop...mush/artifacts/lost detail.
Gonna try Zerene when time permits.

This shot used three lights at subject level, one behind and two in front and off to the side.
Lighting suggestions would be appreciated for future shoots on flowers.

[DanK]

The halo in the second one, on the thin stalk in the center, is a classic stacking artifact. It's an example of the problem I have mentioned before: there is a large distance front-to-back between the stalk and the surface behind it.

With Zerene, I find I generally get better results with flowers using DMap, but this is a case where PMax is superior. It generates much smaller artifacts of this kind and will sometimes not create them at all. In a case like this, I would stack both ways and then retouch the DMap composite from the PMax composite, individual images, or both. You can usually get rid of most of this, although sometimes not 100%.

There is something in the first image that looks odd to me, but I can't quite describe it. In some places, the image looks a bit plastic. The natural textures of the petals aren't very obvious. I am guessing that this is from the PS stacking algorithm, but I really don't know, because I only used PS a few times for stacking. For comparison, I'll paste an old shot of mine that was stacked with Zerene's DMap, which I find is better than PMAx for subtle textures:

[chauncey]

There is something in the first image that looks odd to me, but I can't quite describe it. In some places, the image looks a bit plastic.

That's because I was putzing around with the background, kind of a portrait beauty treatment.
As a side note, I just upgraded PS CC...now it won't stack at all...all black layers except the furthest one.

BTW, the texture in your is great.

[FrankMi]

Not bad at all, Chauncey! I use PS CS5 for stacking but it does miss a bit. I almost always need to go back and manually clean up the artifacts. I'd not to hard to just merge back in the details from the sharpest image in the stack but it can be a bit tedious at times. If you were to do that with the second image, it would be just about perfect!

Dan's image is stellar in his capture of the delicate textures.

[chauncey]

In all fairness it is a decent enough image produced, but...I returned the CamRanger.
While it may work great in an OS environment, the windows 7 interface is inconsistent and erratic.

[PhotoByTrace]

As a side note, I just upgraded PS CC...now it won't stack at all...all black layers except the furthest one.

I had this same problem when I went to focus stack in PS CC14 recently. It's only been since this latest update that I've had issues. Fortunately I wasn't stacking anything near as complex as these... just fore, mid and background of a landscape, so did it manually. Apparently Adobe are aware of the issue, but still...