How to Focus Stack in Photography

[@PlxsmicX8460]

I think I'm not the only one that loves the simplicity of your videos... Other creator can drag videos out longer than they need to be. Thank you for the great video and I love your work!

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thanks so much 🙏🏻

[@banditalley9592]

I was thinking exactly the same - straight to the point and immediately conveying the message without all the hype and BS.

[@janmartin4400]

Love your presentation 1 no fluffy intro 2 straight to the point 3 descriptions are so full of vital points 4 congratulations 10/10 presentation

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thanks a lot :)

[@marcpoletti9511]

Thank you, clear, to the pint, things leaned.

[@kevinmcdonnell]

Will. As usual mate; the complex is made simple and explained in clear concise English. Awesome.

[@billkoller4016]

Thank you so much. I asked for a short tutorial a few months back and you delivered. Much better tutorial than the Lightroom tutorial. Simple and concise.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Cheers Bill 🙏🏻

[@kencabeen7786]

Thanks William!

[@johnbentley1056]

Great tutorial William. You really provided a nice simple and succinct explanation and demonstration. Thank you for sharing.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thank you John 🙏🏻

[@ruzmimohamed6570]

Very nicely explained, short video but very clear. Thank you so much.... 👍

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thank you 🙏🏻

[@metalmick99]

Many thanks for this - it's good to get a run-down of how to go about focus-stacking because Ps and LrC both have extensive menus and this saved me a bit of hunting and trial-and-error. Much appreciated.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

My pleasure. Thank you 🙏🏻

[@buckeroonii]

great straight forward vid, thanks!

[@JR_Tompkins]

Great video William. Easy to understand, matter of fact and no faux-energy that you see in so many of these videos

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

I appreciate that!

[@insightvideo6136]

Fantastic. Straight to the point and well explained. Thanks for this!

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Pleasure. Thank you :)

[@calebvanriper1775]

video looks amazing, like the flow too good job

[@tomhansen3182]

Great video Will. Perfectly simple and detailed enough to get it done.

[@1973Type181VW]

Thanks for the informative video. At the end I preferred to crop versus transform to remove any soft edges, but to each their own. Great job and thanks again!

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@stephsheard]

Thank you for sharing this!!

[@rhodesia1578]

This is of great help Will .. much appreciated mate ! Greetings from Perth ! Stay well and enjoying your content ! 🙏🏻

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thank you!!

[@johnwheeler5271]

Great video.Thankyou.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thank you too!

[@wnose]

Love this feature on the Olympus e-m1 !

[@reneepatino7804]

The ferns are beautiful! ❤

[@kathyperkins7628]

Love your videos Will. Thanks for sharing ❤

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thank you!

[@JohnKAdams-lp2ov]

Wow! Hand-held focus stacking. I've needlessly been attached to the tripod. Really good stuff. Thanks!

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Glad it was helpful!

[@pacop.5980]

Thanks for always giving these Tutorials 🙏🏽🤙🏽 it helps a lot!

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thanks for the support on the channel 🙏🏻

[@philipperobert3347]

Excellent tutorial. Very clear!

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

No problem. Thank you for the comment.

[@stevenpinniger2166]

Awesome, thanks for the tutorial

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

No problem!

[@guyhausfeld7783]

Mate, awesome lesson. Thank you very much.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Pleasure. Thank you.

[@glennroberts1852]

Every other video makes it seem more complicated. This seems easy. Thanks.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

You’re welcome 😊

[@chriswright6381]

Nice one. Been focus stacking with the wide-angle lens for a while but that use of the transform tool at the end of the process is a great tip - will be using this now - thanks! 😉👍

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Legend mate. Cheers!

[@TrishAnne4468]

Thank you so much for this William. I live on Vancouver Island, which is the west coast of Canada, and we have scenes just like this.. Love our rain forest out here. I will be doing this with so many more photos now. You have made a great short tutorial that I will be trying out. I never thought of using the transform tool, I would have just cropped it, I definitely like your way better.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

It looks beautiful over there and yeah, very similar. A great playground for you to work with. Thank you for the support 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@prashantnz]

Thank you sir, appreciated. Love from NZ.

[@theghostrider430]

I did my first stacking from your video. Results came out amazing. Subscribed and will check more videos from you.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@teeeenyfifi]

Nice one will! Totally gonna have a download of this one for a play, haven’t taken a photo for over a week and starting to shake haha

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

😱😱 you must be unwell? 😅

[@teeeenyfifi]

@@WilliamPatinoPhotography nah, just hanging out with the crumblies 😁🤣

[@csayban]

What a great tutorial! You have a new subscriber.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Awesome, thank you! 🙏🏻

[@noraallen2610]

Nevermind I got it !!! It’s a cakewalk !!! ❤

[@SWillow-]

Thank you so much - quick and helpful! Greetings from Germany :-)

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

You're welcome!

[@CyclingOffToSomewhereIDK]

I'm going to try this with my new macro lens that's coming in a few days. Thanks for the easy method 🙂

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thanks mate. Good luck!

[@rolandgibbs9036]

Excellent, now I know. Thanks for that. Subscribed.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thank you 🙏🏻☺️

[@noraallen2610]

Gonna give it a go !

[@wjstewardson]

Super stuff.

[@michaellennon9427]

Nice job.

[@paulseymour7485]

Super info Thanks so much.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

No problem!

[@sirtompo2]

Thanks

[@joanhuggett5164]

Thanks for another tip to add to my 'William's Tips' notebook. I noticed the background trees left of centre are leaning left and those right of centre are leaning right (because of the wide angle), and I'm wondering what do you do about it? Thanks William.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thanks Joan. More warping adjustments just on those corners individually would help correct it, specifically the ‘puppet warp’ tool.

[@oldspiced]

high quality vid

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thank you

[@raw_66]

I am glad you mentioned about the edges, I see this a lot and thought it was just the way I was taking the shots but now I know this is normal. Phew, its not me :) One thought here is what if you over shoot the image and then crop afterwards? I think this would give the same result or when you stretch the image do you maintain pixels or does this effect the image size also?

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Yep, always good to give yourself a little breathing room around the edges when composing. You can’t do it too much though as it starts to really change the perspective you’re after. Sometimes you just need to be ultra close.

[@BenAbode]

Just discovered your channel and it's great content mate - keep it up! But please, for the love of transforming things.. press ALT and drag; what I just saw made me choke on my coffee xD Much love, Stranger from the internet

[@JeannotBadjie]

That was a good tutorial. Would very much appreciate it u can make one on Panoramic.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thanks a lot 🙏🏻

[@carlomure]

Beautiful tips and process, just I don't understand what is the real difference between use transform/flatten instead of a crop?

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Thanks. Crop will force you to remove both x and y axis. Transform let’s us work on just one side of the image. Better for maintaining the composition.

[@cricketbug7362]

If you use the transform tool how do you avoid slightly stretching the image? Are you just eyeballing that? Great tutorial, thanks! Just bought the bundle of all your courses, can’t wait!

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

THANK YOU! In regards to the transform tool ,you just go by sight. Ultimately, the wide angle lens is already giving a warped perception of the scene, so adjusting the perspective further in post really doesn't mean much. Just go with what looks right to you. When it comes to a mountain or sea stacks, I'll be more critical to stay true with the location and how the eye might see it, but something like a forest I'm not too concerned.

[@GaryCunninghamyouareenough]

🙏🏻🤟📸

[@jordhall]

Love how digestible and easy to understand these videos are. Funnily enough, this compelled me to look into whether or not my camera (Canon R7) has built-in focus bracketing, and sure enough it does! Curious about the way you use the transform tool in PS. You used Shift and manually dragged in the edges to crop the photo. I tend to use the Alt key and then drag in one edge, which will equally transform all the sides in unison. Is there a specific reason you use Shift as opposed to Alt? The only thing I'm concerned about is that if you don't drag each edge equally, you run the risk of distorting the aspect ratio of the photo, and might stretch the image horizontally or vertically. Let me know if I'm missing something.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Oh awesome that you have the feature too. Makes it way easier if you’re handheld. I hold shift to adjust one side at a time, the aspect ratio remains the same regardless :)

[@langa1533]

This is one topic I am really struggling with experts not really showing how the photography is exactly done 😢.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Which part are you confused on? I focus stack a lot and it's in a few of my vids :)

[@howies.chanel13]

But with a tripod u don't have re compose just shift your focus point front to back. No need to stitch if ur using a tripod.

[@peakadventures_]

Something I've never done to be honest.. I've always just had the one shot! But i never went into depth with landscapes. I focus more on wildlife photography now..suppose if you're luckily enough to get a subject stationary long enough this could be applied though if you wanted to incorporate a back/foreground? having said that i do think if everything if everything is completey sharp i do think it can look a bit fake? so probably be best to do no more than 4 focus point stacks? unless it's say a bunch of small mushrooms in macro?

[@briandavies8571]

Great video as allways but i can not find the raw files

[@hjones451]

Any way of photo stacking without photoshop or lightroom? I'm guessing not, but thought I would ask - My best (or most expensive) camera is the Sony aiii.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Not that I know of, sorry!

[@gregmartin1615]

🙏

[@rayd.]

Is there a way to get it into Photoshop directly without having to go into Lightroom first?

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Yeah, I don’t use Lightroom personally. Just open the raw files up into photoshop and stack them as layers one on top of the other

[@vistasuprema]

Nice video mate. Why do you resize one side at a time and lose your shooting ratio instead of just grabbing a single corner and maintaining that ratio and just repositioning after?

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

The ratio remains the same. It’s still in the fixed box. I use the warp so I can simply remove one edge or portion without effecting any others. Cropping will always mean both x and y axis are effected. Hope that makes sense. Cheers!

[@vistasuprema]

@@WilliamPatinoPhotography help me understand this, but when you transform at 5:55 you hold shift. Holding shift breaks the fixed box and allows each axis to be transformed, independent of the other axis. So you are indeed changing the aspect ratio. If you don't hold shift in, then you're in a fixed box. But maybe I just don't understand what you're saying?

[@noraallen2610]

Can I let my lessons sit till I’m ready for each one in the bundle or do I need zip them all straight away ??

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Just stream them whenever suits you :)

[@noraallen2610]

@@WilliamPatinoPhotography this is fantastic!! Nothing even slightly stressful, other than trying to find a pink triangle lol

[@JohnMacLeanPhotography]

Rather than transform at the end, which obviously stretches pixels, why not just crop? Thanks.

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Stretching allows us to keep more of one side and less of another. Cropping will remove both sides evenly, which isn’t always ideal for the composition. The stretch here is also minor so no need to worry about pixel stretching.

[@DavidStella]

I tried this with 24 Sony A7RV files and had issues saving them because the file size of the stacked photo was too large 😞

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Try saving as a .psb file

[@DavidStella]

@@WilliamPatinoPhotography that worked, thank you

[@sedwards7428]

Not sure what it did

[@howies.chanel13]

I like your images your in a great place for landscape. But teaching with no tripod isn't just focus stacking it's also merging images like a panoramic using cropping after your done. But using a tripod no need to recompose or stich images, just shift your focus point front to back while locked down on tripod and then use photoshop to blend those too frames together easy as.. I would never shoot handheld in a forest to dark. I just thought u might had showed the tripod way as well to relate to most photographers using a tripod which is most of the time.. in no way am I hacking on your methods I like your images...😊

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

The workflow is identical, just one is using hands and the other is using metal. No need for me to dig out a tripod just to show the workflow being exactly the same.

[@sedwards7428]

can you not say narrow...shallow..... just say the f stop range...easy to understand.

[@MrConna6]

The amount of time I have wasted because you said lightroom and not the classic part is frustrating

[@WilliamPatinoPhotography]

Sorry about that. For over a decade it was just Lightroom, they only added the other a few years back and because don’t use LR at all, I keep forgetting that the original is now called Lightroom Classic.

[@MrConna6]

@WilliamPatinoPhotography Yeah that was a weird shift, still gets me sometimes tbh, the new one I find pretty useless on pc xD

[@ianbraithwaite9563]

As always excellent content and advice thank you Will.