Simplified Photo Stacking

[SMB2]

Man I am so hungry now!
Stacking keeps coming up and I really haven't played with it.
Met a man last week who works at the Air and Space Museum in DC. They are now cataloging their ENTIRE (70K ++) collection with photographs into a computerized digital storage system. Many of the images are 60+ stacked or 3D. When they review the final products the definition is so good that they are seeing ID marks or original writing on pieces that have never been seen before.
Canvas on a Wright brothers wing had marks and calculations written in pencil. Really neat stuff.

Well it's winter so time to play with PS (which I have with LR, but don't use.)

[rickztahone]

i'm assuming this is worth the hassle compared to a selection mask and a blur from a single photo w/ entire subject in focus...that post processing would take about 5 mins and to casual observer...same result, no?

No, simply put, it defies logic to take a shot like this on camera. You'd have to select a larger DOF and then dealing with blurring that would be a pain. Although this seems more complicated, it is much easier than actually trying to blur. There is definitely a time and a place for blurring, but for me, this isn't it.

[rickztahone]

Man I am so hungry now!
Stacking keeps coming up and I really haven't played with it.
Met a man last week who works at the Air and Space Museum in DC. They are now cataloging their ENTIRE (70K ++) collection with photographs into a computerized digital storage system. Many of the images are 60+ stacked or 3D. When they review the final products the definition is so good that they are seeing ID marks or original writing on pieces that have never been seen before.
Canvas on a Wright brothers wing had marks and calculations written in pencil. Really neat stuff.

Well it's winter so time to play with PS (which I have with LR, but don't use.)

That is so amazing! Is there a place to follow this progress?

[Second Hand Pat]

Man I am so hungry now!
Stacking keeps coming up and I really haven't played with it.
Met a man last week who works at the Air and Space Museum in DC. They are now cataloging their ENTIRE (70K ++) collection with photographs into a computerized digital storage system. Many of the images are 60+ stacked or 3D. When they review the final products the definition is so good that they are seeing ID marks or original writing on pieces that have never been seen before.
Canvas on a Wright brothers wing had marks and calculations written in pencil. Really neat stuff.

Well it's winter so time to play with PS (which I have with LR, but don't use.)

WOW, would love to see this
Pat

[Chipps-h2o]

Today I had a photoshoot at a restaurant that I had previously done shots for. They opened with the shots I took and they are doing great now. I had the opportunity to do a very small photostack. This is as simple as it gets because I only took 3 shots which is all I needed.

In order to do this technique you need to follow these steps:

-Camera on tripod
-Lens on manual focus
-manually set WB
-shutter release (optional)
-lock in an aperture

The point of doing this is to be able to throw the background out of focus without sacrificing the other important elements in the shot as well. This allows you to do it, so we are looking to shoot with a somewhat wider aperture to get a nice background. In my case f/2.8. I could have gone to 1.4, but this lens is rather sharp at 2.8 and I didn't feel the shot needed the background to be so out of focus.

So, basically what you do is focus on the front-most subject, in my case, the burger. Second, manually adjust the focus to focus on the second item, in my case, the ketchup. Lastly, manually focus on the last subject, in my case, the fries.

After you have taken the shots of the things you want to be in focus, you run the shots (as many as you need, not just 3) through photoshop.

This video helped me a year or two ago:


Once you follow those steps, PS will have gathered the in focus areas and do the work for you.

The first 3 shots show the different points of focus, the last, the stacked image:

Attachment 92255
Burger in focus. Without this technique this would have to have been the final shot.
Attachment 92256
Ketchup in focus
Attachment 92257
Fries in focus
Attachment 92258

Hope you learned something

I am still editing the photos but I had to take a break from editing. Been at it a few hours now.

Let me know if you want to see some yummy food shots

Great tutorial!