Focus-Stacking Landscape Photos with Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop

Jason P. Odell, Ph.D.Luminescence of Nature™ Press www.luminescentphoto.com

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Focus-Stacking Landscape Photos with Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop

© 2016 Jason P. Odell, Ph.D.www.luminescentphoto.com

What is Focus-Stacking?

The term “focus-stacking” is used to describe a process in which a photographer digitally blends two or more images of the same scene to maximize depth of field. Focus-stacking allows you to capture images that have nearly infinite depth of field without having to stop down to minimum aperture or use expensive tilt-shift lenses. In digital photography, this technique allows you to produce images free of the diffraction softening that occurs with the use of very small apertures on high-resolution digital cameras.

Best Practices for Capturing Focus-Stacked Landscapes

Each frame a focus-stack is captured with a slightly different focus point. For example, you may have one image for the foreground, one for the middle-ground, and a third shot for the background. For macro shots, most photographers will set the camera to a fixed focus distance (magnification ratio) and use a macro rail to move the camera instead of changing the focus on the lens. In landscape photography, that approach isn’t feasible. Instead, the approach is to

focus on different points in the scene by changing the active focus point between your shots.

• Set the camera autofocus mode to single-point. Disable any “auto area” or “dynamic” focusing modes.

• Use manual exposure mode to prevent metering bias from the active focus point and different exposures between

Capture two or more images with different focus points. The left-hand image was focused on the foreground rock. The right-hand image was focused on the background hills.

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frames.

• Use Live-View focusing to allow the full viewfinder area to be used for focus.

• Set the lens aperture to f/11 for maximum sharpness

• Capture 2-3 frames. Start by focusing on the foreground, then move the focus point to the center of the frame, and then the background, focusing the camera in between each capture.

Adjusting the RAW Files in Adobe Lightroom

Once you have your sequence of images for stacking, work on them together. I prefer to use Lightroom’s Auto-Sync feature to match all adjustments between images in real-time as I’m working.

• Select the images to adjust from the Library grid or from the

Filmstrip in the Develop module.

• Enable Auto Sync in the Lightroom Develop Module

Recommended Lightroom Adjustments

• Adjust White Balance if needed

• Disable Sharpening (Set Detail Amount to zero)

• Enable Lens Corrections

• Chromatic Aberration removal: ON

• Profile Corrections: ON

• Vignetting: 100%

• Distortion: 0% (off) This minimizes cropping effects between shots, as the lens distortions sometimes shift based on the focus distance.

All other adjustments to color, contrast and detail should be kept to a minimum during this step. After completing your adjustments, turn off the Auto Sync feature.

Merging the Images in Adobe Photoshop

The next step is to send the focus stacked sequence of images to Adobe Photoshop. You can do this directly from Lightroom.

• First, launch Adobe Photoshop to ensure that it is running.

• In Lightroom, make sure all the images in the sequence are selected (highlighted)

• Right-click and choose Edit In—> “Merge to Panorama in Photoshop…”

• In the Photomerge Dialog in Photoshop, choose “Auto” alignment and uncheck all the other option check-boxes. Adjust multiple images in Lightroom simultaneously by using the Auto Sync

feature in the Develop module.

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Click OK to proceed.

• Your images will now load into Photoshop as layers, and Photoshop will automatically align them based on image content.

Send the images to Photoshop using the “Merge to Panorama” command. Choose Auto Layout and disable all other options in the Photomerge dialog.

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Review and Crop the Aligned Layers

• Make sure the Layers Panel is visible in Photoshop (F5).

• Toggle the visible state of the layers (eyeball icon next to the layer thumbnail); you may see that one or more layers has transparent areas around it.

• Optional: Use the Crop Tool (C) to crop the image and remove any transparent areas.

Blending the Layers

The final step is to blend your layers together into a composite image. Instead of manually masking each layer, we can have Photoshop do it automatically to create a seamless blend. This method is particularly useful when merging three or more image layers.

• Shift-click on each layer in the Layers Panel to select them all.

• Choose Edit—> Auto-Blend Layers.

• In the Layer Blending Dialog, select the “Stack” option.

• Enable the “Seamless Tones and Colors” and “Content Aware Fill Transparent Areas” boxes (if you’ve cropped your image to remove transparent pixels, then this step isn’t necessary.

• Click OK.

Use the Crop tool in Photoshop to remove any transparent edges from your image.

Select all layers and then use the Auto-Blend layers command.

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When you’ve completed the blending process, you’ll see that a new composite layer has been created in the Layers Panel. The original image layers will have layer masks corresponding to the areas of maximum sharpness. In most cases, you can simply flatten the image at this stage. However, if you wish to manually adjust the layer masks, you can do so.

In the Auto-Blend Layers dialog, select the “Stack Images” option.

Upon blending, your original layers will be masked, and a new composite layer is added to the document.

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Finishing Adjustments

The final step is to save and adjust the flattened composite image. You can either edit it in Photoshop (I often use Color Efex Pro 4 and Luminosity masks) or return to Adobe Lightroom for final editing, where I will apply distortion correction and sharpening.

I used Color Efex Pro 4 (Nik Collection) to further enhance the composite image.

Finish processing your image in Photoshop or Lightroom. Here, I used Lightroom to correct lens distortion and to sharpen the image.

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The finished image is sharp from foreground to background.

Resources and Tutorials

For in-depth guides to some of the tools presented here, you may be interested in the following titles from Luminescence of Nature Press.

• Moving to Lightroom: Image Processing and Workflow Guide

• Mastering Luminosity Masks: A Photoshop User’s Guide

• The Photographer’s Guide to Color Efex Pro 4

Learn more at: www.luminescentphoto.com/blog/eshop

About the Author

Jason P. Odell, Ph.D. is a professional photographer who specializes in wildlife, landscape, and creative urban themes. He has authored numerous comprehensive photography guides, including guides to Nikon’s Capture NX, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Nik Plug-ins.

Jason is regarded for his abilities as a photographer and an educator. He communicates both the technical and artistic sides of modern digital photography, making his books and workshops popular with photographers world-wide.

Jason’s photography has been featured by Nik Software, Tiffen, Studio Photography Magazine, Wildlife Photographic Magazine, Singh-Ray Filters, and Digital Silver Imaging.

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