[Photography] Is There a Right and a Wrong Way To Expose Your Photos?

The post Is There a Right and a Wrong Way To Expose Your Photos? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

I have never liked the term ‘correct exposure.’ I don’t believe there’s often a single right way to expose your photos. There’s always room for artistic interpretation depending on:

• Light
• Subject
• Camera
• Lens
• Exposure setting choices
• Composition choices
• Intent

All these will have some influence on the way a photograph will appear. One of the most important aspects of achieving a pleasing exposure is your intent. This cannot be measured by an exposure meter.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D800 | 35mm | 1/8000 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 400.

Choose how you expose your photos

How you expose your photos is a key choice when working with your camera. Most photos you take will display variation in tone from the brightest point to the darkest. You won’t often photograph subjects that are the same tone throughout.

The quality of light and how it reflects off the surfaces in your composition will help determine the exposure value for each tone. Sometimes the range of tones in a composition means your camera will not be able to render them all with visible detail.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D800 | 35mm | 1/200 sec | f/1.4 | ISO 100.

When the level of contrast is beyond what your camera’s sensor can capture in a single exposure, you have to choose how to expose your photos. What is the most important part of the composition you want to expose correctly? Often this will be the middle tones. Other times it will be either the highlights or the darkest parts of your composition.

Particularly with high contrast lighting, you must choose how you want to expose your photograph. This is where the intent you have for how the photo will look comes into play. Do you want a bright, energetic image, or a more somber and moody one? What look will best suit your subject?

With a more monotone subject, the tonal range will not be large, especially when what you are photographing is not highly reflective. It was very easy to make a nice, even exposure of this dusty little dog lying in the dirt. This was because of the limited tonal range, low-contrast light, and overall beige color.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D800 | 50mm |1/1000 sec | f/4.5 | ISO 400.

Think like a film photographer

The dynamic range of film is far narrower than that of modern camera sensors. Our digital cameras are far more capable of recording a broader tonal range in a single image than any film. When you take photos with film, you need to be more precise about how you expose your photos. This is more vital in high contrast situations.

Because the tonal range of film is much narrower, you’re more likely to lose detail in the shadows and/or highlights than when you work with a digital camera. Imagining that you are using film can help you be more aware of what part of your composition you want to expose well.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D800 | 35mm | 1/125 sec | f/3.2 | ISO 1000.

For example, when I photographed this novice monk (above), he was in a dark space with light coming through a window. The contrast was significant. I knew that if I let my camera decide the exposure, it would mean the light area of the boy’s face would be overexposed. This is because most of the composition was in shadow.

I used my spot meter to take an exposure reading from the light reflecting off the monk’s face and set my exposure accordingly. In my original file, there is some detail visible in the shadows. I have boosted the contrast during post-processing to eliminate it.

The bell-shaped histogram myth

The notion that a correctly exposed image will produce a bell-shaped histogram is nonsense. You can’t rely on a histogram to provide useful information about exposure.

Histograms are a graphical representation of the tones present in a photo. When the photo is mostly middle tones, you’ll see the histogram as a bell shape: high in the middle section and low toward the left and the right.

The tonal range of the scene you are photographing has an influence on what the histogram will look like. This is why you cannot gauge exposure by looking at the histogram. Some people may find it helpful, but it’s not good practice to rely on it to help you choose your exposure settings. Don’t aim to make your histogram a bell shape.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D800 | 85mm | 1/640 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 400.

For example, portraits made against a black background will never display a bell-shaped histogram. The graph will always spike on the left because there are more dark tones in the image than midtones or light tones. Depending on what a person is wearing, such a histogram may be very flat.

For the image above, the grandma’s face is where I wanted the correct exposure. It would not be possible, even if I wanted it, to set my exposure so that detail in both the background and the headscarf was visible.

Expose your photos with intent

Know what you want before you press the shutter release.

Often, you have chosen your subject. You’ve composed carefully. Then you take a photo with no real regard for the lighting or your exposure setting.

Letting the camera take care of the exposure using averaged metering and an automatic setting is the way many people take pictures. The results of such exposures are relatively predictable. This is because of how cameras are designed and calibrated. To obtain the best exposure each time you take a photograph, you must match it to your intent.

How do you want the light on your subject to look? What is the mood you want your photo to convey? Are you capable of achieving this with the current lighting? These things must be considered before you press the shutter release.

Be in control of your exposure settings. Read your meter as a guide. Rather than ensuring that your meter is reading zero for every photo, adjust your settings to where you can capture the photo that matches your intent.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D800 | 35mm | 1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 400.

Conclusion

I do not believe there is a right or wrong exposure choice for any photo. You can take into account all the technical aspects, but while this approach may produce technically correct images, they will often lack expression and feeling of any kind.

Not being intentional when you expose your photos often produces bland results.

The post Is There a Right and a Wrong Way To Expose Your Photos? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

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[Photography] Tips for Managing Digital Noise in Lightroom and Photoshop

The post Tips for Managing Digital Noise in Lightroom and Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

If you’ve ever set your ISO toward the higher end of your camera’s range, you will find that your photos don’t always turn out so great. Digital noise is generally noticeable in photos that have been taken with a high ISO setting. Managing digital noise is important when you move toward the limits of your camera’s ISO range.

In this article, we’ll take a look at various techniques, both in-camera and during post-processing, for managing digital noise.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D700 | 70mm | 1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400.

What does digital noise look like?

Digital noise appears like colored sand scattered through your photos. It’s particularly noticeable in darker and lighter areas of your compositions when you’ve used a high ISO setting.

Noise varies from camera to camera depending on the quality of the sensor. You’ll have noticed it in photos made with your smartphone at night. When the light is low and the ISO is high, a phone or camera with a very small sensor is prone to producing a lot of digital noise. On higher-end full-frame cameras there’s not so much of an issue with digital noise until your ISO reaches the highest settings it’s capable of.

At first glance, digital noise may not be so noticeable. But when you enlarge an image made using a high ISO, it is easy to see noise speckles. These speckles are discolored pixels and pixels with an incorrect luminance value. They contrast with the surroundings in an unnatural way.

Digital noise in photos is not the same as grain. Grain is associated with film and has a different appearance than digital noise. Different types of film have different grain structures. Grain can be used to creatively enhance photos, whereas digital noise degrades an image.

Detail showing digital noise. Nikon D700 | 70mm | 1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400.

Two types of digital noise

There are two types of digital noise that affect your photos when you use a high ISO setting. These are color noise and luminance noise. 

Color noise, or chromatic noise, appears as discolored pixels that contrast with how the colors in a photo should look. It’s most apparent in the very light or very dark areas of photos taken at high ISO settings. Sometimes this type of noise is difficult to eradicate. The best approach can be to simply convert your photo to black and white.

Luminance noise shows up as pixels that are brighter than they should be. When you raise the ISO setting on your camera, the pixels on the sensor become amplified and distort. Think of it as like turning the volume on your stereo up too high to the point that the sound distorts.

How can you avoid digital noise in photos?

The most surefire way to avoid digital noise is to keep your ISO setting low. This is not always possible, especially when photographing in low light conditions.

Raising your ISO increases the risk of adding unsightly noise, but it also allows you to choose a narrower aperture and faster shutter speed. 

Getting sharp photos of action at night requires a fast shutter speed. And an easy way to achieve this is by raising your ISO setting. So it’s not always possible to avoid noise. Managing digital noise when you post-process your photos then becomes necessary. There are various tricks and tools you can use to do this.

© Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D700 | 35mm | 1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400.

Try this exercise to discover the highest ISO setting you are comfortable using on your camera:

Find a reasonably dark place to take photos of a static subject, such as a room with the drapes drawn or outside at night. Set your camera on a tripod, or on a firm surface where it won’t move.

You can set your camera to any exposure mode you’re comfortable with, but you must set your ISO to manual. And if you use your camera’s manual exposure setting, balance your aperture or shutter speed before each shot (so your meter is always reading zero).

Start with the lowest ISO setting. This is usually ISO 100. Take a photo of your subject. Then change your ISO setting to 200. Take another photo.

Repeat this process, doubling the ISO, until you have taken a series of images throughout the ISO range.

Study the photos on your computer. Zoom in to 100% and look at the digital noise. At what ISO setting does the digital noise appear to degrade image quality? The ISO setting below that point should be the maximum you use.

How can you reduce digital noise in photos?

Unprocessed photo. © Kevin Landwer-Johan. Nikon D700 | 24mm | 1/100 sec | f/3.2 | ISO 6400.

Post-processing programs and apps have functions that can reduce digital noise in photos. 

The less noise apparent in a photo, the more successfully you can remove it. If you’re too aggressive with managing digital noise, your photos will appear soft and blurry.

Detail showing digital noise.

Reducing digital noise using Lightroom

In the Develop module in Lightroom, click on the Details Panel on the right side of the screen. Here you’ll see a number of sliders. The ones you want to use are the Luminance and Color sliders.

Start with Luminance slider and drag it to the right. Then slide the Color slider if you still see some noise. Watch what’s happening to your image as you do this. You don’t want to slide it further than you need to. The further to the right you move these controls, the softer your image becomes.

The amount you need to adjust the sliders will vary from image to image.

Detail with noise reduced. Note the position of the Color and Luminance sliders.

Reducing digital noise using Photoshop

If you prefer using Photoshop, you’ll still find good controls for managing digital noise. 

In the top menu select Filter>Camera Raw Filter. In the new window that opens, select the Details icon (it’s the two triangles). Here you have the same two sliders as in Lightroom: Luminance and Color. Slide them to the right only enough to get a satisfactory result.

Detail of unprocessed image showing noise reduction tools in Photoshop.

You can further reduce noise by selecting Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise from the top menu. 

Applying the noise reduction filter in Photoshop.

Photoshop allows you more flexibility in reducing noise. You can isolate the problem areas with masks or multiple layers. This can help retain detail in important areas of your compositions.

Try this noise reduction technique

When you are photographing a static subject and have your camera on a tripod, take two or more photos. 

Open two of the photos in separate layers of the same file in Photoshop. Once you’ve done this, the easiest way to reduce the noise and retain clarity is by changing the blend mode of the top layer. The Multiply blend mode usually works well. You can also experiment with Overlay and Soft Light blend modes.

Conclusion

Whenever I’m taking photos, I try to maintain the lowest ISO setting possible to avoid digital noise. In many low light situations, using a higher ISO setting is necessary to take photos without extra lights.

Each camera model manages digital noise differently. Use the experiment I outlined in this article to ascertain the highest ISO setting at which you are comfortable shooting. 

Managing digital noise is now easier than ever. Cameras have more advanced sensors than early digital cameras had. And imaging software has also evolved to be better at managing digital noise.

The post Tips for Managing Digital Noise in Lightroom and Photoshop appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.

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[Photography] Anthropics Portrait Pro Editing Software Review

The post Anthropics Portrait Pro Editing Software Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

Anthropics Portrait Pro 19 is the latest version of its incredibly popular retouching software. This piece of software allows users to create professional retouches without needing to spend hours learning several techniques. Instead, Portrait Pro uses a simple, user-friendly interface that allows advanced retouching in a simple to understand and time-saving manner.

What’s New in Portrait Pro 19

Anthropics Portrait Pro 19 brings a host of improvements that make this software better than ever before.

Clearskin 5

There is a big improvement in the skin detail over previous versions of Portrait Pro.

The first I must mention is the Clearskin 5 technology. Based on state-of-the-art A.I., Clearskin 5 intelligently maps the contours and features of the face and retouches skin accordingly. It also replicates the face’s natural skin texture, allowing users to subtly remove blemishes while maintaining the subject’s natural appearance. When combined with the improved Fix Lighting tool, this new technology makes it even easier for photographers to achieve amazing results.

When compared to previous versions (which themselves were very good) this is a subtle but noticeable difference. For me, this alone is enough to recommend this version, but there is a lot more under the hood.

Let’s look at what’s new in Portrait Pro 19.

Advance Hair Retouching

Hair detection has been improved and gives users more options than ever before. After choosing a base shade for the hair, you can tweak this to create a variety of styles, from a subtle improvement of natural color all the way through to more extremes of pink and blue hair.

A subtle tweak or a radical change? Both are possible in Portrait Pro.

Expression Sliders

This tool offers a variety of ways to subtly change the expression of your model, letting you get the perfect smile every time.

It’s easy to get your subjects smile just right when using this software.

Accurate Lens Correction

Utilizing 3D modeling, the software accurately corrects for lens distortions created by wide-angle lenses such as mobile phone cameras.

Optimized Plugin (Studio exclusive)

This plugin allows you to harness the power of Portrait Pro directly from Photoshop and start editing right away. By updating the technology, the plugin returns to Photoshop up to five times faster than previous versions, which means less time processing and more time creating great portraits.

Improved Automatic Batch Processing (Studio Max exclusive)

PortraitPro Studio Max 19 allows photographers to automatically process batches of images simultaneously. The software detects faces and features in the image, applies your chosen presets and automatically saves the result. Again, thanks to PortraitPro 19, the software handles images 2x faster than before, allowing you to retouch a batch of images quickly and easily yet achieving amazing, tailored results.

This tool (exclusive to the Studio Max edition of the software) is something that I can see being amazing for sending proofs from a headshot session. Imagine the ability to send all of the client images to select from, all retouched to your specific style. Not only will it wow your clients, but it is effortless for you to do this. 

You do not need your subject to be looking directly at the camera. In this example, which was part of a batch, it still picked up the features quickly and easily saving me time.

Interactive Tutorials

These tutorials are some of the best I have seen for any software – allowing you to follow along and improve images with a guide to hold your hand.

The tutorials allow users to get to grips with the features of the software quickly and easily. By the time you get through the first couple of tutorials, you will be itching to use the software on your own images, but when you want to push your skills a little more (or just can’t quite figure something), there are more advanced tutorials to help you upgrade your skills.

There are various tutorials, from retouching skin and face shaping (which are the two tools you will probably use the most) through to a series of advanced tutorials that go into detail on things like applying makeup, hair, eyes, and many more. Thus, allowing you to take advantage of the massive feature set on offer with this software.

The built-in tutorials make it really easy to get started in Portrait Pro 19.

In Use 

After going through the first two tutorials, I wanted to put some of my own images through the software. The feature detection on the tutorials was quick, simple, and incredibly accurate. I wanted to see if this was as good in real life as it was in the tutorials. I was amazed that my own images imported quickly and found the models’ features perfectly the first time.

Putting in my first image, I was surprised how quickly it found all the features of the face.

Presets

I thought I’d start by trying the built-in presets. I clicked the Standard Preset and almost instantly the image was good enough to give to a client. After trying the other presets, I found the Maximum Lighting worked really well for the shot below.

Within two clicks, I had an image that was retouched to a high standard. As someone who has spent hours learning retouching techniques in Photoshop, it was impressive. To those who are new to retouching, it will give you a set of tools that would normally take hours to master individually at the click of a button.

I’ll be honest, some of the presets were a little too much for me. However, I tend to go for a more natural look in my retouching. Yet, I can see that for some, they will be perfect. I think the presets have been created to give every style of photographer a great starting point that can be tweaked until they get their own style.

With a few clicks, you can get results like these. From L-R: Original image, Standard Preset and Max Light Preset

Starting From Scratch

It would have been easy for me to leave the review here, as the presets do a great job, but I wanted to dive deeper and see how the tools would work individually. I started over with the same image and worked my way through the panels.

The panels are laid out in a very logical order, starting with Sculpting the Face, which allows you to tweak everything from eye size to the length of the model’s neck. Everything is simple and uses a slider-based system.

I then worked through the skin smoothing (which looks a lot more natural than previous versions of the software) before continuing to work my way down the menu system.

I created my own preset for this shoot. Once I had it how I liked it, I could then save my style as a preset and apply it to more images from the shoot.

A small word of caution, though. Portrait Pro allows you to push the retouching levels to the extreme. You can get caught up in pushing all sliders to the max. This will not give you a great result and like adding salt to a meal, a sprinkle is always better than a handful.

Make use of the before and after function to check you have not pushed your image too far. I have heard complaints that Portrait Pro makes everything “Doll Like” or “Just Not Natural.” That is not true. Just like Photoshop, users can get carried away and push things too far in their edits. 

It was amazing that only 30-minutes into using a brand new piece of software, I was able to fully retouch a portrait to this level without needing a YouTube tutorial. What’s even better is that with a couple of clicks, I now had my own preset that I could apply to other images. This is something that really does create a massive time-saving option. 

I put my newly created preset to the test with another image from the same shoot. It literally took me 10-seconds to import and apply the preset and it was ready to export. If you are working with large amounts of images per shoot, this might just be a game-changer.

Within 10 seconds, I had created this edit, in my own style without needing to press more than one button.

By the time I had finished, I had added makeup, added lighting, and changed both hair and eye color quickly and easily. The feature that stood out for me was the advanced lighting tool. 

For those who are new to working with light or those who don’t currently have a lighting system, you can add lighting effects that really enhance the image and make it pop.

Who’s it for?

Anthropics Portrait Pro is an amazing tool for those who are new to retouching portraits. It is simple, yet incredibly powerful and gives you pleasing results within seconds. However, it offers much more and encourages you to go back to the software and personalize your retouching. 

For those who are more advanced photographers, it allows you to really speed up your workflow and create signature styles. The Photoshop Plugin (Studio Exclusive) means you can use Portrait Pro as part of a larger project.

For Pro’s, there is a real benefit from the batch processing options found in the Studio Max Edition. If you are shooting several images and want to send clients a selection, by using a preset (either one in-built or your own signature style), you can retouch all images with a few clicks. This saves you a lot of time and allows you to focus on your business.  

If you retouch portraits, you really need to try this software out. Also, DPS has managed to get a special offer just for you. 

How Do You Get Portrait Pro?

You can download your free trial at https://www.anthropics.com/portraitpro/download/

Currently there is a 50% OFF sale everything + DPS readers get an EXTRA 15% OFF when you use the coupon JW9682

I look forward to seeing what you create in the comments below.

The post Anthropics Portrait Pro Editing Software Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

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[Photography] A Beginner’s Guide to Focus Stacking

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Focus Stacking appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Bruce Wunderlich.

Other than for special effect, photographers generally do not want out-of-focus images. But sometimes, regardless of which camera settings are used, not every detail of an image can be captured tack sharp.

The depth of field (DOF) can be so shallow that interesting aspects of the photos are without sharpness. A smaller aperture may be used to increase DOF, but moving the aperture farther from a lens’s sweet spot introduces lens diffraction into the image, again resulting in some fuzziness. Also, if stopping down the camera’s aperture, the shutter speed will need to be increased and blurry images may result. Increasing ISO to help with the exposure will introduce digital noise to the image.

So how do you shoot with the best aperture and shutter speed combination and get sharp images from the front to the back of an image? A technique that can help resolve this problem is called focus stacking.

Here’s some helpful info about this technique.

A 13 image focus stack.

What You Need

• A tripod.
• A DSLR camera capable of shooting in manual mode. It is possible to use a point and shoot camera, but it must have a manual mode and manual focus capabilities.
• A depth of field app (which is helpful but not required).
• Photoshop or another focus stacking software.

How to Shoot for Focus Stacking

Focus stacking is similar in principle to HDR photography. However, with focus stacking, images are captured with different focus points and later combined in Photoshop; this is in order to create an image with more DOF than would be possible with a single exposure. Landscape and macro photography are two genres of photography that benefit most from using this procedure.

But be warned: Calm winds and reasonably stationary objects are a must!

Before beginning to shoot, it is always helpful to know a lens’s sweet spot, defined as the aperture at which the lens produces its sharpest image. (It is usually found about two to three stops from wide open.) Experiment until this important setting is determined.

Landscape

There are two basic scenarios when shooting landscapes that may benefit from focus stacking.

The first is when the subject is a close foreground object with an interesting background, and you want both these elements to be in sharp focus.

The second is when using a telephoto lens (which typically has a shallow depth of field) and the subject covers multiple distances that may be brought into sharper focus.

(FYI: If shooting a landscape with a wide-angle lens, the DOF may be deep enough to capture a sharp image that doesn’t require focus stacking.)

Here is a little trick to find out if focus stacking will benefit an image when photographing a scene or subject:

After composing the image, set the focus point about one third into the image. Then, using Live View, enlarge the image and check to see if the foreground and background are sharp or blurry. If either image isn’t in focus as sharply as desired, the image could benefit from focus stacking.

Steps for Shooting Landscapes for Focus Stacking

1. Place the camera on a sturdy tripod; this is a must!
2. Frame the subject and compose the shot.
3. Determine exposure for the scene and set the camera to manual mode to ensure that the exposure is constant for every image.
4. Set the camera to Live View and aim the focus point at the nearest object you want in focus. Use the camera’s zoom (the plus button, not zoom on the lens) to preview the focus through Live View. Then switch to manual focus and use the focus ring to fine-tune for sharpness if necessary.
5. Take the first exposure.
6. Without moving the camera or adjusting any settings, move the focus point to an object mid-way in the image and refocus.
7. Take the second exposure.
8. Again, without changing anything, refocus on an object at the farthest point of the intended image.
9. Take the third exposure. To capture landscapes, three images are generally all that is necessary to create sharp focus stacking images, but it’s completely fine to take extra images to make sure that the entire scene is covered. A rule of thumb would be to add more images for longer focal lengths. Be aware that extra images will take longer to process in post-production. If available, check the DOF with a Smartphone app in order to figure out how many images will be necessary to get every aspect of the photo in focus.

The first image was focused on the fence, the second was focused midway into the image, and the third was focused on the front of the house.

Macro Photography

Macro photography can benefit from focus stacking more than any other type of photography, because a macro lens has an extremely shallow depth of field.

So here’s what you do:

1. Place the camera on a sturdy tripod – a must!
2. Frame the subject and compose the shot.
3. Determine the exposure for the subject, and set the camera to manual mode to ensure that the exposure remains constant for each and every image.
4. Set the camera to Live View and aim the focus point on the nearest object you want to be in focus. Use the camera’s zoom (the plus button, not a zoom on the lens) to preview the focus through Live View. Then switch to manual focus and use the focus ring to fine-tune for sharpness, if necessary.
5. Take the first exposure.
6. Without moving the camera or adjusting any settings, move the focus point to a distance slightly farther away from the lens. Remember that DOF in macro photography will be measured in fractions of an inch, instead of in feet (as in landscape photography).
7. Repeat step 6 as many times as needed to cover every aspect of the subject’s DOF. This could range from as few as six images to 30+ images. Make sure the entire subject is covered or the results may be unusable. If available, check a DOF app on your smartphone to figure out how many images will be necessary to get every aspect of the photo in focus.

Focus stacking the flowers only makes the flowers stand out from the background.

The image on left is a single image capture at 85mm focal length. The image on right is a 12-image focus stack. Each image had a DOF of less than one inch. Note the additional detail in the image on the right compared to the single image.

Tip: Take a shot with your hand in front of the camera before and after each series of images. When working with the images later, this will make it easier to tell where each series starts and ends.

Use your hand to mark the beginning of each series of images. This will make processing your images easier.

Processing the Final Images

Processing the files to achieve the final image may seem like the most difficult part of creating a focus-stacked image, but it’s really very simple to do in Photoshop. Here’s how:

1. Open Photoshop
2. Get each image on a separate layer. Under File, choose Scripts and Load Files into Stack. Click Browse and select all the images.
3. Check the Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images box.
4. Click OK and each of the images will open into a new layer in Photoshop.
5. Open the Layer palette and select all layers.
6. Under Edit, select Auto-Blend Layers.
7. Check the box for Stack Images and Seamless Tones and Colors. Optionally, select Content-Aware Fill Transparent Areas, which will fill any transparent areas generated by aligning images in step 3. (Be aware that this will increase processing time. Generally, I do not choose this option; rather, I just crop the image slightly later, if necessary.)
8. Click OK
9. Flatten the image by selecting Layer>Flatten Image and save.

Note: If you are using a Lightroom and Photoshop workflow, after importing your images into Lightroom, instead of following steps two through five, you can simply add all your images into Photoshop as layers. Just select all your images, then go to Photo>Edit In>Open as Layer In Photoshop.

This will open all the selected images as layers. You will then have to align your images by selecting all the layers in the layer palette, then go to Edit>Auto Align Layers. Finally, continue at step six above.

Summary

It is nearly every photographer’s intention to capture the sharpest images possible, and focus stacking can be another tool to help you achieve that goal. The trick to this whole process is to take enough focused images to create a final photo that is in focus from foreground to background.

The results can be amazing once you get the hang of it; make sure to give it a try!

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Focus Stacking appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Bruce Wunderlich.

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