The Spider and Focus Stacking, WooHoo!

Hey gang!

The spider was out again today, and I decided to try focus stacking for the first time! I don't have an app for that, so I picked 5 shots and loaded them into Photoshop into "blending" layers, then brushed away!

At the end I decided to do some "Smart Sharpening just for some quick fun -- I'll show you the results at the end!

I used my trusty 30D with the 100mm macro. Each f/11 shot got some stuff in focus, but I wanted more!

First, this is one of the 5 originals -- it's not bad when you look at the uncropped version:

Here's a link to the full collection in PBase:

http://www.pbase.com …n_the_deck_focu​s_stacking

Stack came out well !
Brian v.

Hey, thanks Brian! Even though I used to spend a lot of time in Photoshop, it all came to a "halt" as I focused on Lightroom for my workflow management back in '07. So this was interesting, jumping in there with a new "thing"!

Well done.

Some nice work there.

Hey, thanks!

Especially since my Smart Sharpening was overdone!

Very nice for a hand rolled stack. Those are the hardest and impossible for me. I have tried it, but got nothing out of it, and even Combine doesn't like to work for me.

I think the second to last is the best here, but even the unstacked one is nice.

Hey, thanks for the look, Mitch!

This was the first try for me, so I guess I'm happy with the results! I'm really rusty with Photoshop!

Ha, I use CS5 every day and still can't do it.

Very nice Tony. I hate spiders with a passion when I'm going to work at 5AM and there's no porch lights but 10 spiders out there. If you could imagine it, I had my phone with the flashlight app in one hand and a broom to hit down any webs in the other haha.

ni$mo350 wrote in post #13145073
Very nice Tony. I hate spiders with a passion when I'm going to work at 5AM and there's no porch lights but 10 spiders out there. If you could imagine it, I had my phone with the flashlight app in one hand and a broom to hit down any webs in the other haha.

Heh! Thanks! And, well Chris, this little guy has been parked just off of my deck for some time and not bothering me --so I've just used him for a couple macro projects!

I'll be sure to do the same when I get my 70-200 2.8ii in next week

Lovely shots and stacks.

canonloader wrote in post #13145017
Ha, I use CS5 every day and still can't do it.

Well, since this was my first "project" and I really am out of practice I have no expertise, but it was fairly straightforward once I figured out the best way to get started!

I used Lightroom to apply any global adjustments, synching them and such, and then started by just using Edit in Photoshop with 5 of the shots.

But then I got bogged down trying to recall all the fine points -- needed to align the actual pixels and then creating masks and doing all the stuff...

Then I recalled that Bridge has the Tools->Photoshop->Photomerge utility that can load all the files, layer them, align them, and provide masks with "beginning" bits of white and black "hide" and "show" places, which is a great "starting point" for this type of thing, so this is what I ended up with -- most of the broad masking was done and I just had to brush in the bits on the individual layers according to which areas were sharper:

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I had to edit my original post, because I realized I had to open my "normal" macro aperture of f/16 to f/11 because the light was kind of dim, so the settings for these were 1/6 sec, f/11, ISO 200 on the 30D -- I don't like to use say ISO 400 with these kind of shots because noise starts to be bothersome at the closer crops!