Focus Stacked Gerbera Daisy

[DigitalScape]

This image of a Gerbera Daisy is composed of three separate images with different focus points. I stacked them together in Photoshop and then built a mask for each layer to show only the in focus portion of each layer. The result is a very deep DOF image.


180mm, 1/250 second, stacked focus

[princer7]

Very cool. Always wanted to try this.

[DigitalScape]

Thank you, Jennifer - it was my first attempt at the stacked focus as well. Building the masks for each layer is the hard part.

[iCe]

The few times that I have tried macro focus stacking were miserable failures. You did a great job on this

[Kenj8246]

Good job, John. Very rich reds. Stacking is too much work for me.

[DigitalScape]

Thank you Michael and Kenny. I agree that the focus stacking method is a time intensive and possibly frustrating effort, and I'll probably not do too much of it. I liked the results, just not how long it took to get there.

[TheFantasticG]

Good work sir. I like the richness of the reds.

Originally Posted by Kenj8246

Stacking is too much work for me.

Agreed.

[scottbuckel]

I really like your final image the detail is amazing.

Have you tried the focus stacking feature in Photoshop CS5? It works pretty well. Simply you bring the different focus points as individual layers, then you auto align layers, the you run auto blend layers.

Scott

[ifly223]

When I grow up I wanna be just like you. Man, thats way over my noggin. : )

[DigitalScape]

Scott, I did as you noted, but the auto blend did not result in an image I liked -- hence the manual creation of the layer masks.