Most of the videos I see about focus stacking could really be titled, "How to Push Some Buttons in PS," because that's all they really do. I really appreciate how you also showed the manual method to achieve the same (better in this case) results. Also the fact that you mentioned what SHOULDN'T be selected in the dialog boxes was a simple but huge thing that most others ignore. Well done.
Thanks man! The manual stacking is not so annoying when you watch someone else do it :) BTW the color tones in the photo are awesome! Just shows it doesn't always have to be blazing red.
This is great! Presentation style is excellent and very clear to follow. I realize now that I have some photos I need to revisit so I can try this technique as I think they had similar issues.
Nice work. I've got a question here. What should I do if I need to do both focus stack and HDR stack? I do HDR stack in lightroom to get better dynamic range. In this case how many photos should I take? 3+ photos in different ev and another 3+ in different focus? I'm quite confused here.
Another tip ... after the align step in PS, simply Shift+Click the bottom layer eyeball to hide the other layers. With the obvious focus breathing, just use Image -> Trim to automatically crop to that size. All the other layers are trimmed as well. No blurry edges! Shift+Click the eyeball again to restore. (Note that some lenses breathe in the other direction, a Shift+Click at the top may be useful.) This works really well except if there has been significant rotation during the sequence.
@@robertstonephoto All good tips except I would disagree about Seamless tones. In almost every case I have played with it causes more blockiness and inconsistencies. Perhaps in a case where exposures were changing quite a bit frame to frame I could see using it. But in that case I would select the images in lightroom (settings>match total exposures) to remove those inconsistencies at the RAW level before stacking.
@@MichaelShainblum I find that I have to try several options to solve difficult images. This only means using the history panel to go back to a good state and trying a different approach. No need to start from scratch rah time.
Awesome tutorial. Would love to see more videos like this. Are there times you focus stack in the field and times you don’t? Trying to understand the best time to do it.
Thanks, Sometimes I will try my best not to focus stack when things are moving in the scene or the light in changing quickly. Honestly I do everything I can not to focus stack. But for scenes like this where the foreground is so close to the lens, it is necessary. Also sometimes I need to focus stack telephoto images where there are lots of layers at different distances in the scene.
I recorded a vlog recently where I focus stack in field and then I am also thinking about recording a dedication focus stacking in field tutorial in the future.
Thanks for this. Tried it with two images. Still having to get my head around the "white reveals , black conceals" brush mantra - in action -not remembering the four words ;-) - need to practise. Pleased with results. Showing both methods helps understanding. One tip that might be useful is labeling the different layers e.g. in my case I have "Shrub Front" and "Tree Back" for my two images so I know which is focused where.
PS is, as compared to dedicated focus stacking software (Helicon/Zerene) is miserable. Be that as it may... it would be nice if you could do a Focus-Stacking along with Exposure Blended at the same time. Would like to see your process. I have my own.
Thanks Michael I had always done my focus stacking manually, I didn't know about "Auto blend layers", (always learning something new about Photoshop). Of course I will have to see if my older version of Photoshop supports this, if not I haven't lost anything. :)
Awesome video - well explained with the mud crack example. Going to give this a go next time using my wide angle instead of cranking my aperture down to f/22!
Thanks for another great tutorial, Michael! Loved the cool tones in the shot too👍 I’d love to see a future video on how to optimize capture and post-processing of high contrast scenes. Cheers!
No man i need to thankyou for everything thing you have done for me , only if i could show you my work from past and what i create now, u could understand what kindof impact your images have on my work. THANKYOU MICHAEL. Hope to meet you someday and thank you in person. Keep inspiring us
As always a great video. I'm new to this technique and when I tried to focus stack 3 images in Photoshop after importing from Lightroom two of the images opened in one tab, and the third in a seperate tab. I believe I followed the rest of the procedure correctly but can't figure out what I did wrong
hmmm not really sure. If you select "edit as layers in photoshop" it should put the files in the same tab. Unless there is a problem with the images or something weird going on with lightroom. You can always drag that 3rd image into the other tab as a layer too.
I've been using these techniques for years, and always wondered if there is a better way to manually blend images where there is severe overlap between foreground and background, like a bush or fern sticking out. Usually the only way to do this is by copying the background behind the blurry foreground after combining exposures since there is no information of the sharp background right around the edges due to the overlapping foreground information being out of focus and thus bigger. Any approaches to how to focus stack in such a situation? My approach is kind of annoying having to clone in background details around every single edge where there is overlap between fore and background elements.
Appreciate the tutorial, Michael! When you auto-align your layers, is there another way to fill in the transparent border? I think cropping may be inevitable, but sometimes it changes the feel of the image!
Thanks for the tutorial Michael...i see in your last video you are using the CTC highline ball head....is it the medium/small? I currently use XT-2 but after having it for almost 3 years thinking of switching to S1/S1R....love doing time lapses & long exposures..which one do you suggest small or medium? also your thoughts on quality/usability etc...
That’s great! Thank you for the tutorial! I didn’t know about Auto blend layers and always did it manually - this might save a lot of time in the future! Really appreciate your videos! As for other tutorials: do you have any recommendations for blending an overexposed object (e.g. overexposed moon to get the foreground correctly exposed) with the correctly exposed same object (e.g. correctly exposed moon but with complete darkness around it) to get some of the details of the object back? I keep struggling with this a lot.
I keep them the same between shots. I have had to change them once or twice when focus stacking long exposures during twilight. But most of the time I leave them the same.
I was referring to the other masks, when using the brush, although it would work as well for a white to black gradient from top to bottom. If you need to create many black masks I find that alt+click saves some time in the long run. It's not that important anyway, the end result matters.
Another well put together video and tutorial. Question: I am looking to upgrade my editing PC (not a mac user), what is you PC setup? Desktop or laptop, and do you have any recommendations? Thanks Michael
Thanks I built my own PC for 8K video editing. If I was just shooting stills I would probably just have a new Macbook Pro to be honest. But I built a Desktop with 14core CPU, 64GRAM, RTX2080. Which does pretty damn well on RED footage and RAW timelapses.
Why do you focus stack and not use the hyperfocal distance? come to think of it, none of the photographers I follow on TH-cam mention hyperfocal length. I have yet to try focus stacking (just subscribed to Photoshop).
Because hyperfocal distance works only to a certain extent. It does not account for extreme examples of being close to your foreground. In this case it is impossible to get the image perfectly in-focus regardless of where you choose your focal point. To be honest most of my shots do not need to be focus stacked. But there are a few cases where it is necessary.
@@MichaelShainblum Thank you for taking the time to reply. Will give focus stacking and exposure blending go after I start getting my head around photoshop.
You totally can, it’s just a bit annoying. You basically do this process for each frame of the pano. Then stitch all the stacked images when you are done.
@@shounakhinge8 I will do a big sale on them soon. But I will also be releasing plenty of new tutorials over here on TH-cam as well. Plenty of techniques to learn in the future without buying anything. :)
Thanks for the tutorial showing both ways. I've had photoshop do the weird "say you wanted chunk of the background out of focus". Lol. One problem that I've seen with focus stacking is if clouds are moving and light casting on the scene is changing from bright to shadows. I would imagine that focus stacking is preferred during consistent lighting conditions or do you have any tips on dealing with changing light?
Could be a couple things. The first is auto align layers doesn't work on smart objects, so make sure you aren't working with those. Also make sure you highlight the multiple layers you want to align. If only one layer is highlighted then auto align will be greyed out.
Most of the videos I see about focus stacking could really be titled, "How to Push Some Buttons in PS," because that's all they really do. I really appreciate how you also showed the manual method to achieve the same (better in this case) results. Also the fact that you mentioned what SHOULDN'T be selected in the dialog boxes was a simple but huge thing that most others ignore.
Well done.
Thanks so much for watching Joel! :)
Best video on focus stacking I've seen. Thanks for the great instructions!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks!
A review with how too use nikon 850 using its focus stack would be gr8 too
Thanks man! The manual stacking is not so annoying when you watch someone else do it :) BTW the color tones in the photo are awesome! Just shows it doesn't always have to be blazing red.
Thanks so much Frank!
First time I really understood focus stacking. Thank you! 👍
Thanks for an informative video - just the right amount of information.
This is great! Presentation style is excellent and very clear to follow. I realize now that I have some photos I need to revisit so I can try this technique as I think they had similar issues.
Nice work. I've got a question here. What should I do if I need to do both focus stack and HDR stack? I do HDR stack in lightroom to get better dynamic range. In this case how many photos should I take? 3+ photos in different ev and another 3+ in different focus? I'm quite confused here.
Thank you Michael, this was very helpful🙏🏻.. Can you please make a video on how to shoot and edit vertical panorama images?
I can do that! :)
Michael Shainblum Awesome, looking forward to that..! 👌🏻
Another tip ... after the align step in PS, simply Shift+Click the bottom layer eyeball to hide the other layers. With the obvious focus breathing, just use Image -> Trim to automatically crop to that size. All the other layers are trimmed as well. No blurry edges! Shift+Click the eyeball again to restore. (Note that some lenses breathe in the other direction, a Shift+Click at the top may be useful.) This works really well except if there has been significant rotation during the sequence.
Also ... in the blend step, checking the Seamless Tones box may solve your sky issue.
@@robertstonephoto All good tips except I would disagree about Seamless tones. In almost every case I have played with it causes more blockiness and inconsistencies. Perhaps in a case where exposures were changing quite a bit frame to frame I could see using it. But in that case I would select the images in lightroom (settings>match total exposures) to remove those inconsistencies at the RAW level before stacking.
@@MichaelShainblum I find that I have to try several options to solve difficult images. This only means using the history panel to go back to a good state and trying a different approach. No need to start from scratch rah time.
Awesome tutorial. Would love to see more videos like this. Are there times you focus stack in the field and times you don’t? Trying to understand the best time to do it.
Thanks, Sometimes I will try my best not to focus stack when things are moving in the scene or the light in changing quickly. Honestly I do everything I can not to focus stack. But for scenes like this where the foreground is so close to the lens, it is necessary. Also sometimes I need to focus stack telephoto images where there are lots of layers at different distances in the scene.
I recorded a vlog recently where I focus stack in field and then I am also thinking about recording a dedication focus stacking in field tutorial in the future.
@@MichaelShainblum that would be awesome
Can you show a more complex case, for example with flowers in the foreground?
Yup in the future I will cover that.
Got a like as soon as you started speaking. Could tell it was going to be a gooden, I was right. Thanks.
New subscriber. Thank you for the lesson on manually stacking/blending different focus layers. Well done.
Thanks for this. Tried it with two images. Still having to get my head around the "white reveals , black conceals" brush mantra - in action -not remembering the four words ;-) - need to practise. Pleased with results. Showing both methods helps understanding. One tip that might be useful is labeling the different layers e.g. in my case I have "Shrub Front" and "Tree Back" for my two images so I know which is focused where.
PS is, as compared to dedicated focus stacking software (Helicon/Zerene) is miserable. Be that as it may... it would be nice if you could do a Focus-Stacking along with Exposure Blended at the same time. Would like to see your process. I have my own.
Focus breathing lenses; completely forgot about that happening. Cheers.
Great explanation.
Hi, for the manual method would it help to create a in focus selection per layer then brush in on the mask?
Thanks Michael I had always done my focus stacking manually, I didn't know about "Auto blend layers", (always learning something new about Photoshop). Of course I will have to see if my older version of Photoshop supports this, if not I haven't lost anything. :)
Awesome video - well explained with the mud crack example. Going to give this a go next time using my wide angle instead of cranking my aperture down to f/22!
Thanks so much!
Thanks for the tips Michael. Love your stuff.
Thanks Alex!
Thanks for another great tutorial, Michael! Loved the cool tones in the shot too👍 I’d love to see a future video on how to optimize capture and post-processing of high contrast scenes. Cheers!
Thanks so much!
Thnx voor the tutorial Michael.
Thanks for watching!
This one was indepth. Thankyou fir sharing this . Much appreciated 🙏
Thanks so much!
No man i need to thankyou for everything thing you have done for me , only if i could show you my work from past and what i create now, u could understand what kindof impact your images have on my work. THANKYOU MICHAEL. Hope to meet you someday and thank you in person. Keep inspiring us
I’m guessing the sequence of your layers plays a huge roll in focus stacking?
Sweet! Thanks for the vid man I was thinking about looking up some more techniques for stacking so this was perfect timing 👌
Thanks so much!
Thank you for your video! I'd like to see how you make a panorama ;-)
And a short explanation on how to learn "your" photoshop skills :)
Curious if you still use a slider for your time lapses? May ask which one you use? Any recommendations for a beginner?
Indeed I do, I use the Dynamic Perception stage one
As always a great video. I'm new to this technique and when I tried to focus stack 3 images in Photoshop after importing from Lightroom two of the images opened in one tab, and the third in a seperate tab. I believe I followed the rest of the procedure correctly but can't figure out what I did wrong
hmmm not really sure. If you select "edit as layers in photoshop" it should put the files in the same tab. Unless there is a problem with the images or something weird going on with lightroom. You can always drag that 3rd image into the other tab as a layer too.
@@MichaelShainblum ok thanks for that I'll give it a try. As you can probably tell I'm quite new to Photoshop.
I've been using these techniques for years, and always wondered if there is a better way to manually blend images where there is severe overlap between foreground and background, like a bush or fern sticking out. Usually the only way to do this is by copying the background behind the blurry foreground after combining exposures since there is no information of the sharp background right around the edges due to the overlapping foreground information being out of focus and thus bigger. Any approaches to how to focus stack in such a situation? My approach is kind of annoying having to clone in background details around every single edge where there is overlap between fore and background elements.
Appreciate the tutorial, Michael! When you auto-align your layers, is there another way to fill in the transparent border? I think cropping may be inevitable, but sometimes it changes the feel of the image!
You can clone stamp and content aware fill, but that sounds really miserable. Really the best thing to do is shoot for the crop in field.
Thanks for the tutorial Michael...i see in your last video you are using the CTC highline ball head....is it the medium/small? I currently use XT-2 but after having it for almost 3 years thinking of
switching to S1/S1R....love doing time lapses & long exposures..which one do you suggest small or medium? also your thoughts on quality/usability etc...
The successful focus stacking I've done (on a D850) was 12" or 24" off the ground.
Thats about was this shot was taken at as well
Blending tutorial would be interesting 💡
I can do that :)
Thank you!
Thanks Patty!
Great tutorial. Easy to follow. You did a great job explaining everything.
Thank you!
That’s great! Thank you for the tutorial! I didn’t know about Auto blend layers and always did it manually - this might save a lot of time in the future! Really appreciate your videos!
As for other tutorials: do you have any recommendations for blending an overexposed object (e.g. overexposed moon to get the foreground correctly exposed) with the correctly exposed same object (e.g. correctly exposed moon but with complete darkness around it) to get some of the details of the object back? I keep struggling with this a lot.
Hi. Thanks for this vídeo. Do you usually keep your settings between focus points or you change them?
I keep them the same between shots. I have had to change them once or twice when focus stacking long exposures during twilight. But most of the time I leave them the same.
Michael Shainblum Thanks.
I'd like to see a exposure stacking of a image with more details
Ricardo Leão watch sean bagshaw
Small optimization: Alt+click on the mask button to create a black mask. No need to invert it afterwards.
I had to invert it because I made the gradient in the opposite direction.
I was referring to the other masks, when using the brush, although it would work as well for a white to black gradient from top to bottom. If you need to create many black masks I find that alt+click saves some time in the long run. It's not that important anyway, the end result matters.
@@MihaiNeacsu Oh true, forgot I was inverting them for the manual section of the tutorial. Thanks for the note!
Thank you as well for all the tips and tricks on your channel. Looking fwd to more vids :).
Awesome tips.
Thanks for watching!
Another well put together video and tutorial. Question: I am looking to upgrade my editing PC (not a mac user), what is you PC setup? Desktop or laptop, and do you have any recommendations? Thanks Michael
Thanks I built my own PC for 8K video editing. If I was just shooting stills I would probably just have a new Macbook Pro to be honest. But I built a Desktop with 14core CPU, 64GRAM, RTX2080. Which does pretty damn well on RED footage and RAW timelapses.
Why do you focus stack and not use the hyperfocal distance? come to think of it, none of the photographers I follow on TH-cam mention hyperfocal length. I have yet to try focus stacking (just subscribed to Photoshop).
Because hyperfocal distance works only to a certain extent. It does not account for extreme examples of being close to your foreground. In this case it is impossible to get the image perfectly in-focus regardless of where you choose your focal point.
To be honest most of my shots do not need to be focus stacked. But there are a few cases where it is necessary.
@@MichaelShainblum Thank you for taking the time to reply. Will give focus stacking and exposure blending go after I start getting my head around photoshop.
Have been looking for the Crunch Tool in PS but haven’t been able to find it. What’s up? 😎
Haha crunch tool like bringing all the layers into a new one? That would be (Command+Opt+Shift+E) on Mac or (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E) on PC.
Can I focus stack in a panorama image?
You totally can, it’s just a bit annoying. You basically do this process for each frame of the pano. Then stitch all the stacked images when you are done.
@@MichaelShainblum thank you for replying me Mr. Shainblum!!!
I like it already
Thanks!
Hey Michael ! We would have loved if you had provided those images to us so, we could follow you in the tutorial !
Hey there Shounak, sorry I really only do that for my premium tutorials.
@@MichaelShainblum oh, I see 😅
Hopefully I can afford to spend on tutorials one day...
@@shounakhinge8 I will do a big sale on them soon. But I will also be releasing plenty of new tutorials over here on TH-cam as well. Plenty of techniques to learn in the future without buying anything. :)
@@MichaelShainblum I really appreciate it man ! Keep creating ! 😁
@@shounakhinge8 Thanks so much for the support!
Thanks for the tutorial showing both ways. I've had photoshop do the weird "say you wanted chunk of the background out of focus". Lol.
One problem that I've seen with focus stacking is if clouds are moving and light casting on the scene is changing from bright to shadows. I would imagine that focus stacking is preferred during consistent lighting conditions or do you have any tips on dealing with changing light?
auto align layers is grayed out, do you know what's the problem here?
Could be a couple things. The first is auto align layers doesn't work on smart objects, so make sure you aren't working with those. Also make sure you highlight the multiple layers you want to align. If only one layer is highlighted then auto align will be greyed out.
@@MichaelShainblum tnx for the reply, they where indeed smart objects
I find that I get better results with Helicon Focus than I do with Photoshop.
Hi friend
Auto blend NEVER works for me. I have to do it manually every single time.
That is a bummer, try Helicon Focus if Photoshop just is not working for ya. Its a more advanced algorithm for stacking.
@@MichaelShainblum I'll try it. Thanks for the tip!
Holy crap this was all so confusing lol. Not your fault, just stuff like this gets me lost real quick.