Focus stacking

When you use a camera to take photos, only part of the image will be in focus. This is due to the optical characteristics of the lens you are using. With a wide angle, things appear to have more sharpness. The opposite is true with a telephoto, which has shallower range of focus also known as depth of field (dof).

Another thing that effects the amount of sharpness is depth of field. This is the amount of your image that is in focus in front of the lens. You can control the amount of sharpness, by stopping down with the aperture. By using a small f/stop like f/16 or 22, you will increase the amount of sharpness in front of the lens.

But this will not give you a completely sharp picture. There will still be some out of focus areas of your photo.

If you want to get a completely sharp picture from 0 to infinity, you can use the Scheimpflug Rule and a 4 X5 camera.

Here is a link that will explain the Scheimpflug Rule using a 4 X5 camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbWyFuMMkVM. If this video is too technical or you have trouble understanding it, there are other

Here is another link that explains the same thing but is easier to understand..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7lSy70q38I

The second option is to use a tilt and shift lens on a digital SLR. Henry’s sells tilt and shift lens for both Canon and Nikon with prices starting at around $1000 and rising to $4200.

If neither of these two techniques catch your fancy, you can simply use a regular DSLR and Adobe Photoshop CC to achieve the something similar. This technique is called focus stacking.

Here are three very good videos on focus stacking using a DSLR.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=CBEvuT1MwVw&feature=emb_logo
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7yUUmGMvE
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMiKUnVAFks

For your reading pleasure, here are two more links. I think the Digital Photo School video is more detailed.

1. http://digital-photography-school.com/an-introduction-to-focus-stacking
2. http://www.lightstalking.com/focus-stacking-in-photoshop

Your assignment

This is an individual assignment. Others can help, but you must do all the work and only you get the mark. After you complete your proposal and lighting diagram, watched the videos and read the tutorials, start your assignment.

Select two sets of objects you intend to photograph. They must be inside in the classroom. It can be a row of desks, several smaller objects like 2 or 4 pens or any small stationary objects. Avoid anything that moves.

Sign out a DSLR, and a tripod .

Set up you camera, make sure the lens is set to manual focus, use manual or aperture priority, set your ISO to 200, the white balance to florescent lighting, and you select the f/stop. A smaller f-stop like f/11, 16 or 22 works fine. Do not adjust your aperture or move your camera.

Take a series of photos where you adjust your focus on each object you set up in front of the camera. About 4 to 6 photos should suffice.

Select the best 4 or 5 and import them into Photoshop.

Follow the instructions from the links and finish your two final photos.

Don’t forget to crop your final results to avoid any out-of-focus parts in your images.

Hand in the following:

1. Your original photos

2. Your uncropped blended photo.

3. Your finished focus stacked photo that you have sharpened.

Hand in two different examples (2 sets of difference photos of Focus Stacking).

How To Do Focus Stacking In Photoshop

By Madena Sherzad -- a former Com Tech student.

1. Open “Adobe Photoshop CC 2018”

2. Go to “File” ----- “Scripts” ----- “Load Files into Stack”

3. Select “Files” ----- Open “Browse” ----- Select the images you need & Click “Ok”.

4. Select “Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images” & Click “OK”.

5. Once All the photos are loaded Go to “Select” and Click on “All Layers”

6. Go to “Edit” and Click on “Auto-Blend Layers”

7. “Auto-Blend Layers” will pop on the screen select “Stack Images” and Click “OK”

8. Give it a minute & your done :)