Slabbing in Zerene Stacker - focus stack batch processing

[@BoyGeorgiaX]

I am a plant photographer and I always catch myself starting your videos off the clock when I should be watching them while I’m shooting. Thank you for all of the great tips.

[@bobabela]

You pointed out several things about working within Zerene Stacker that I had not considered yet very useful. Thanks Allan, this was an excellent video and I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you put into this.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks Bob. Glad it was of help.

[@goranthoren5522]

Wow! Stumbled across this video and what an excellent, humble approach you have to sharing your knowledge. You're truly a role model in educating. Thanks so much for doing this!

[@gr33kb0i]

Hey Allan, Just wanted to say thank you for all you do, the time you take and how in detail you get. You have opened up a door to a whole new world for me

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Fantastic! Glad you are finding it helpful!

[@danev1969]

Allan, I was doing this manually for a few images not knowing about slabbing. It did help. But now that I see it is built in I will probably save hours of work in the future. Thanks.

[@fusion-music]

Never heard of this term "slabbing" but it seems I did this on my inferior pc when it couldn't handle too many photo stacks in Deep Sky Stacker. However, applying this macro and the extent you take it is a different ball game. I love your inferior stack you showed at the beginning. I could live with that, maybe for a time, until that phrase "but Allan would do it better" comes into mind everytime I look at it. You did a brilliant job with the video, overcoming the limitations of computer software - using the video camera to screen share. I get that problem with certain softwares. Your kind of photography makes nature & astrophotography look quite tame. Thanks Allan.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Hi Steve - good to hear from you and thanks for the kind words!

[@fusion-music]

@@AllanWallsPhotography Well, I think the pleasure is all ours (the viewers) in hearing you Allan. Just had a look at your website that you have been building. Wow! That's no simple process. Very impressive. Had a listen to your posh PodCasts too. You are doing a fine job and I hope it will bring the rewards you deserve. It certainly will bring client confidence for sure.

[@richardwinlondon9689]

HI Allan, another EXCELLENT video thank you. With your dialogue it appears you watch my workflow. I was totally unaware of slabbing in Serene but will definitely give it a go. I used to "slab" manually then stack the outputs and get in a right mess when trying to edit. As I am watching the video with a glass of Malbec in my hand I will certainly revisit again tomorrow and do some test runs on a subject that I have trouble with due to "legs everywhere" etc. Thanks again.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thank you, Richard - I'm glad those manual slabbing days are over. What a pain.

[@danev1969]

Might try editing after three glasses, who knows? May help...

[@mikeboyle3122]

Hi Allan, another thanks from me. I had tried Zerene beta slabbing without much success until your video. In fact, your channel has opened a whole new area of interest for me over the last few months. So much so that I’ve purchased a focus rail, built a tube lens and ordered a Nikon 10x objective from a specialist retailer who said they were in high demand due to a ‘guy on KZbin’! Rik Littlefield has also added dust and hot pixel masking in the Zerene beta (see www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41343 ). As someone who is a Photoshop novice, a tutorial on this would be of huge interest. In any event thanks again from me in the not so sunny UK.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks Mike. II almost launched into rave about how much I love the new Zerene features but the video was already too long and I resisted the urge. I think a separate video on the other features will be in order. I'd take "not so sunny" over the tropical storm that hammered us this week!

[@Puffer001]

Thanks allan for another great video, bought zerene on your recommendation and im loving it just download the update and giving it a go. Became one of your paetrons last week, you are teaching me a huge amount of knowledge, if it wasn't for people like you I would have given up a long time ago, really enjoying macro. Cheers dave

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks Dave! I think you are going to love Zerene - it is such a powerful and reliable piece of software. Thanks again for your patronage!

[@baileysbugblog6478]

Your timing is impeccable. Looking for a tutorial from someone i sub to this morning, then you upload :).

[@mondujar279]

Thanks again Alan, very interesting. No doubt slabbing is one of the next stages for my macro evolution. I have evolved very quick from zero to intermediate in 3 months! These insects 🦟 seem to have taken millions of years. Still trying to perfect diffuser and specimen holding currently though

[@barryt09]

Hi Allan, What can I say? You've done it again. I had completely the wrong idea about Slabbing, I thought it was the process where you take stacks of different sections of a subject when it is too big to do in one, then use MS Ice to stitch them all together. Slabbing as you describe it is a completely different process. Also I wasn't even aware that the latest Zerene update included a Slabbing sub-program. Well explained, I will have to try it. Another great video.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks Barry! I actually have a stitching video coming up soon!

[@jimgsewell]

Thank you Allan, very informative.

[@junken13]

Greetings from the motherland Allan. I've been using Zerene for a number of years now but hadn't even heard of slabbing until you mentioned it in one of your older videos. Just got home from work and was just about to research how it's done and then up pops your video! The perfect introduction to it all, thanks Allan. You always take time to explain things and why something is the way it is, which I really appreciate. Having a whole set of extreme macro videos to compliment each other is vastly helpful also, the cleaning and preservation of insects is a learning process in itself. I've certainly had 'overlapping' issues etc before so it's good to know that slabbing can help with this. Just a quick question about a different topic - someone on a message board somewhere claimed they had increased the magnification of their amscope 4x to 6x by adjusting the distance of the objective from the sensor plane. Does that sound right? I thought it had to be pretty much bang on no? I've had a little play and while the quality appears to be the same at different distances, I'm not getting any increase in magnification. Cheers again

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks Steven - good luck with the slabbing. Be careful with the intermediate Pmax slabs - they are huge, and if you don't chuck them out periodically they will fill up your disk in no time flat.

[@SomeonewithaSony]

Just a plug for Zerene - agreed: customer service is excellent. If you reach out to them on a Sunday, long weekend, they’ll get back to you that same Sunday that same long weekend. Have used Zerene for years.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Couldn't agree more. Rik's attention to his customers was why I went with Zerene in the first place - and they've never let me down.

[@marksinthedark2011]

Been waiting for this, thanks!

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Cheers, Mark - hope it's not too boring!

[@s1amko]

Hi Allan, I appreciate your thorough review of Zerene Stacker. You've helped me switch over from Helicon. I have a question for you. I lost some of the edges of the image when slabbing and stacking. Is this to be expected or is there any way around it? Thank you!

[@alainadamski7703]

Hi from France. Thank you, it was very, very interesting!

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thank you Alain!

[@caltari]

How did you attach the QuadHands to the Superclamp? They sell the magnetic clamps on Ebay without the base. Thanks in advance

[@johnd7564]

FYI for those watching this in 2021 and later... I don't know when the slabbing feature moved from beta to prod, but it's in the production version in January 2020. At least on Mac.

[@degezondekeuken4867]

Hello Allan for subs i used bugslabber with old version of zerene i use now the updated version of zerene but when i make slabs zerene makes alot of slabs zerene makes everyting 5times double do have any idea about this ?? thanks in advance regards marco

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Wow, that sounds very strange. What settings are you using in Zerene for the batch processing? I slab in ZS every day of the week and I have never seen the problem you describe - Have you tried resetting everything to default? That will usually fix anything. If not you should call the support line, Rik will get it sorted out I am sure.

[@degezondekeuken4867]

@@AllanWallsPhotography Thanks for your reaction i will check it again this weekend maybe a reset helps regards marco

[@andrewh2341]

I find a recursive stack method to work best. I will stack 6 images with 2 images overlap on either end, and do that a second or third time to get down to 10-20 final images, then do a normal stack of them

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Hi Andrew - for the right image, I agree. Great point!

[@wassim2364]

☕️🍰👍

[@atahassanzadeh4878]

I got noisy image output from Zerene Stacker and helicon !! why ???

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Hi Ata - there a many possible reasons - noisy inputs will result in even noisier stacks - watch your ISO when shooting. The Pmax algorithm also has a tendency to accumulate noise in darker parts of the image. Slabbing can actually limit this effect by minimizing the noise in each sub-stack. Send me some of your input/output images and I can help you more (www.allanwallsphotography.com or [e-mail])

[@atahassanzadeh4878]

​@@AllanWallsPhotography I will. the ISO is always on 100. I get better result with photoshop. this is my instagram. all of stacking with PS. instagram.com/atahassanzadeh/

[@gr33kb0i]

Ata Hassanzadeh amazing shots! Completely love your art sir

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

@@atahassanzadeh4878 Very nice images, Ata! PS and ZS are two very different tools for focus stacking. PS simply can't handle large stacks, or provide the advanced retouching that complex subjects need. But to each his own - and you can't argue with success. You make lovely images and have found the best program for your needs! If you ever want to dig deeper into what ZS can do, get in touch and I'll be happy to help you.

[@atahassanzadeh4878]

@@AllanWallsPhotography Thank you😊😊🙏🙏🔎🔍. I have to try . TNX😊. you are right, in PS I have to select 2 by 2 if have more than about 12 image to get better details on stacking