Landscape Photography: How to focus stack moving water correctly in Adobe Photoshop

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In this video I show you how I focus stack properly in Photoshop. Many people miss a vitally important step and this saves you wasting time and getting it right. Focus-stacking right in Photoshop. Landscape Photography focus-stacking.
Video edited by Ann Kristin Lindaas
Images ©Alister Benn
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[@lesallan9146]

Thank you so much for this very useful video.

[@pleatedskirt18]

A slow and simple, but expensive solution, is to use a tilt lens. One shot at a modest aperture, and all is in sharp focus. Bliuring of water is achieved by an ND or stoper filter, and/or changing ISO.

[@paulmoore721]

Thanks for this!

[@davidpowell5437]

As a newcomer to stacking I had got as far as womdering if masking out carefully selected areas of some stack elements prior to restacking would be a way to eliminate some artefacts. So the answer is Yes! - and this is the way to do it. Nicely timed publication. Thanks!

[@roykropp155]

Extremely useful lesson. Am now more optimistic about focus stacking when leaves are moving. Thanks

[@paulmoore721]

Thanks!

[@Alister_Benn]

Thanks so very much, that is very kind of you. I appreciate it very much

[@paulmoore721]

@@Alister_Benn you are most welcome!

[@kristelschneider6156]

Thanks Alister! we learn every day and this time from you ;-) the grouping ...top x

[@JayGilmourMedia]

Very good Alistair! Even after years of using Photoshop I still pick up great little tips.

[@Alister_Benn]

Fabulous, happy to help

[@kevins8575]

This sounds like a classic case for using a tilt lens. Have you any experience with those? A very pricey solution to what can (almost?) be done with careful focus stacking

[@JohnDrummondPhoto]

I've been doing something similar but without doing separate groups. Your way is much easier to pick out and mask in the layers that need it without having to move them on top on at a time. Thanks, Alister. Maybe in the future you could do a lesson on when to focus stack, and when not to.

[@Alister_Benn]

Cheers man. Glad it’s helpful

[@jimrookphotos]

Book has been ordered a couple weeks already and looking forward to it. Using the Groups in focus stacking was new to me. Appreciate the lesson.

[@dennisstansfield4621]

thank you

[@alandouglas4612]

Great tutorial Alister, These extra steps in the focus stacking process are going to be so useful, many thanks once again (:

[@Alister_Benn]

Yeah, it took me a while to work it out, but this is the way I always do it with moving subjects

[@paulg.2347]

Thank You great tips and techniques

[@Alister_Benn]

Appreciate that feedback, thanks

[@Hudson_Swan]

Thank you for this! Very informative and well explained video!

[@bruce-le-smith]

Super helpful, thank you!

[@Alister_Benn]

Many thanks

[@andrewsimpson5436]

But you said we only needed LR! 🤣 That group copy trick looks good to get rid of the blotches. Would it not be just as easy to manually use what you want with the brush, ignoring the auto blend. I'm guessing your way is faster or am I missing something else? Cheers for the idea.

[@paulbenson3441]

Hi Alister, I hope you're keeping well. I'm watching your video on focus stacking using Photoshop, this is my second viewing and probably there will be a third. I have a bridge camera with a fixed zoom lens and focus stacking has become essential in many instances. So far I've been relying on the automated 'blend images' in Photoshop and it does a pretty good job. I photograph a lot of trees and close-ups of leaves to home in on the amazing textures, and often it is necessary to focus stack, but of course leaves move and branches sway and automated stacking become impossible. I'm going to have a practise at your method , Alister. I've seen blending of individual images before, but I couldn't get my head around the technique. You explained your technique well so I'm going to have a go step by step. Thanks Alister. By the way, my wife and I visited Joe Cornish's Gallery in Northallerton about two weeks ago on our way to Scarborough. It was a very rewarding experience and we shall certainly go again. There were also other photographers exhibiting at the Gallery too. Great wee cafe there and short stay/long stay parking about 10 minutes' walk from the Gallery; Pay and Display, but very reasonable. Have a good day. Paul, Sheffield.

[@jmpattillo]

Great tutorial. Thank you

[@Alister_Benn]

Appreciate the feedback, thanks very much

[@MarkRomine]

Very useful!

[@Robert-R]

Hi Allster - This will be very helpful. I have some waterfall shots that I had focus stacked (3 or 4 images) and I was having a hell of a time trying to good end result. The scene was a waterfall in the background and a meandering river with some foreground rocks, however, it was complicated by this being taken in the autumn and leaves were floating down the river. The PS stack output ended up with a stream of leaves and I was having difficulty reducing them without manually focus stacking. Your technique will make it a lot easier. In hindsight, I should have made the foreground and middle shots shorter exposures since it wouldn't have changed the fluidity of the river, but would have eliminated a lot of the leaf trail. Thanks!

[@grantnewton5705]

Thanks Alister … really good video. I have tried editing the masks created by photoshop …. And it’s a nightmare, so will try this technique with my next focus stack ….. I get plenty of focus breathing when doing a macro focus stack ….. so not hopeful it will fully solve the issue, but likely to be much better. I gave Helicon Focus a try - much better than PS but still isn’t perfect …… must give Zerene Stacker a try as well ….. hoping your technique does the trick!

[@mathiaslibor287]

I always get these blurry lines around the edges when focus stacking, too. Even if there are images with sharp detail in those areas. Sometimes cropping them out is the easiest way and ok but there are other instances where you put a lot of effort in composing the image right in camera and you don't want to crop the tiniest bit. I often find my self painting out the parts of the masks that are blurred and paint in the sharp areas manually (just the way you do it with another group of aligned images) but if you or anybody here knows how to stop PS from creating these blurry edges in the first place this would be a massive help. Manual stacking ist just a faff :-)

[@esanford]

Mmmmmmmmm..... good video; except, I am a little dense today. After I watch it about 10 times, I will figure it out. My Achilles heel in Photoshop is not really grasping masks and blending concepts. In the mean time, I have to do a lot of images in my stacks to make sure that I have better sharpness at the outset.

[@Alister_Benn]

Thanks mate, you’ll get it for sure

[@bruce-le-smith]

Yeah I agree masking is a different and tricky way of thinking, especially when you start to have 3 or more masks at the same time. Something I need a lot more practice at too.

[@Photovintageguy]

Try some simple masking tutorials, this is bit heavy for someone that hasn’t worked with masks before. That being said once you understand what’s basically going on, it’s not that complicated. It just looks that way till you use it a few times, hopefully in simpler examples at first. It’s something that you have to understand, by using. Just visualizing everything by watching a video is not realistic. I learned in community college class, they just had us make composites from two completely different photos.

[@esanford]

@@Photovintageguy 👍🏿

[@Bobcat-1967]

That was great. I'm pretty new to focus stacking but my problem is file size. I stacked 12 images and when I saved it I had a huge PSD file that wouldn't appear back in Lightroom. I know I'm doing something wrong but I don't know what.

[@Photovintageguy]

If it’s ready save it as something else, the psd with 12 images is good for changes in PS. If you plan to use the final image that copy is going to a flat tiff or jpg, or whatever else you need .

[@Bobcat-1967]

@@Photovintageguy Thanks

[@SimonWillig]

I clearly have a lack of ps experience. Layers..check. Masking..hmmm. Layer group..what-the-....