Focus Stacking: The Secret for ULTRA SHARP Photos (Photoshop Tutorial)

[@scandinavianthinking1251]

Thank you for the wonderful and magical transformation of the mossed trunks! So beautiful.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Happy you like it!! :-)

[@Fraser1GP]

This was an epic explanation of the entire process....Thank You.....More of these...Loved this

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Very happy to hear that, thank you!

[@wilfriedklein6066]

Toll, dass Du aus der Hand diese verschiedenen Fokuslagen geschafft hast, ohne groß verrutscht zu sein👍

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Hat auf jeden Fall ein paar Versuche gebraucht, aber ich bin auch wirklich zufrieden mit dem Ergbnis!

[@TheRiversplash]

I want to thank you for your awesome KZbin channel. You are among the very best of those doing photo processing videos. I know it must be a lot of work and I sure appreciate how often you post, Again and again, somehow you manage to present on topics I had been wondering about. Or, better yet, you present something I had zero knowledge of it, and now it's part of my work flow. I don't usually write fan mail, but...dayum.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thank you so much, that really means a lot to me!

[@westwalian1018]

Your videos are very good, especially the presentation. Good work.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thanks a lot!

[@mustangshelby2740]

Wow - you make it so simple and easy to follow so far most of your episodes are very straight to the point and using the tools not too complex which I like to follow since I am a newbie . Thanks Chris . See you in next class.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Very happy to hear that, thank you!

[@keithsimpson8676]

Great Christian. Your TK panels can help you with stacking a series of separate images. There’s a new version of TK now, TK9. Like you videos, it’s excellent.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thanks for commenting! I really need to upgrade the TK panel, its been a while :D

[@paulcooper9187]

Just so helpful, thank you 👍

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thank you very much!

[@Dmac996]

Your photoshop knowledge is insane

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Vielen lieben Dank! Die unschärfe ist in der Tat sehr stark, für den gewollten Effekt finde ich es ok :-)

[@binsuwaif]

Thank you

[@Javier-zm7vl]

Spectacular video and a beautiful capture 👏🏼👏🏼👍🏼

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thanks a lot!

[@masterloretta]

Sempre video Top

[@autourdelaphoto-jeanpierre2583]

Super video. Merci

[@i.m.5621]

Nice work. Focus stacking plus exposure bracketing are always challenging for accuracy. So I was very interested to know that you took a total of 5x3 shots of such a detailed scene without a tripod for subsequent merging into HDR and then blending the in-focus areas. It turned out great. I know that even with a tripod and no exposure bracketing, the Photoshop blending is often not perfect for such a textured scene (branches, leaves, grass), especially when it's just a bit windy... If possible, I personally prefer to use manual masking or at least correcting automatic blend masks created by Photoshop.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thank you very much, happy you like the outcome! :-) I agree, if it would have been windy, this scene would probably be impossible to capture for HDR + focus stacking. It did take a few tries to get a decent result, but I'm very happy with the final image :-)

[@MrRaceluver]

great!

[@PavelDubau]

Thanks for tutorial 🙂 One question: is there a more simple way to add all photos into a stack: File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack > Add Open Files?

[@i.m.5621]

Yes, you can, from any folder. In Photoshop there is a function "file/scripts/load files into stack". Alternatively, you can start the whole process from Lightroom with the "Photo/Edit in/Open as Layers in Photoshop" function.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Thanks for commenting! As @i.m.5621 pointed out correctly you can use this script or lightroom to open the images :-)

[@huette]

Thanks for your video! What is your reason why you did not just directly open the Lightroom images as layers in Photoshop? I do a lot of focus stacking, especially in mushroom season, so I bought a dedicated stacking software. While your approach works fine most of the time, PS sometimes does strange stuff while stacking.

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

I agree, sometimes Photoshop does funny things when stacking photos. My reason doing it all in Photoshop + the Camera Raw Editor was to stay in the same Software the whole time, because switchting Software midway through the video kind of feels disruptive to me if that makes sense

[@huette]

@@ThePhlogPhotography got it, makes sense

[@swissbird80]

Thanks. And now at the end we find this version as one new Image in LR, or we have to safe it manually?

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

The HDR files are new files that are created after merging, The focus stacked image needs to be saved manually at the end :-)

[@Orkney_Pirate]

Hi Christian, great video thank you. Quick question. How do you use tools (for example blending modes) when in HDR? I can use if I change to 16 bit but otherwise everything is greyed out. TIA :)

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Hey, happy you like the video! Do you edit a special HDR format? Because when I merge the HDR (in Lightroom or the Camera Raw Editor) I can use all the tools I want. Were you working with a smart object by any chance and this made the tools greyed out?

[@Orkney_Pirate]

Thanks for responding Christian. I will have another try but it seems the tools are only greyed out while in 32 bit format. I will check my workflow. Cheers Christian. @@ThePhlogPhotography

[@louisburley1597]

How would you stack it if the auto blend doesn’t do a good job? It never seems to work for me. It likes to blend my sky with the foreground focus point so background trees in parts (and clouds) are blurry in patches

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

Ohhh I know what you mean, its so frustrating! If that happens, I try to manually blend the images in those specific areas using layer masks, but that doesn't work that well either most of the times...

[@glittoraphel.c]

In which aperture u took this photos

[@ThePhlogPhotography]

F/16, you can see the camera settings below the histogram in the camera raw editor (the first parts of the video)

[@glittoraphel.c]

@@ThePhlogPhotographyThanks ❤