How to use PS to do depth stitching to create a clear effect

in this tutorial, we'll show you how to extend the depth of the field of your macro photography with focus stacking.

One of the most fascinating areas of macro photography is the illusory effects of shallow depth of the landscape. But this virtual beauty can sometimes cause problems, especially when we want to be photographed clearly. Although narrowing the aperture can enlarge the depth of field, this method does not always work, giving the scene the same clarity as before. So, try this workaround: Keep the camera on a tripod and shoot several pictures at a time, slightly changing the focus distance, and then use Photoshop to combine the clear parts of it to get a piece of detail that is extremely sharp.

We'll start this tutorial with a series of floral photographs with slightly different focus, first using camera raw to make a uniform adjustment to them, and then using the automatic blending command in Photoshop to get the clear parts together.

1, open the file

Place the 5 raw files you have taken in one folder, start Adobe Bridge, and open the folder. Click to select the first file in the folder, and then shift-click the last file to select all of them. Right-click to select the open in Camera Raw command.

2. Remove Stain

In ACR, click the Select All button in the upper-left corner to choose all the files so that the next set adjustment works for all files. Select the stain removal Tool from the top toolbar, set the type to fixed in the right panel, opacity 100%, drag and drop the mouse over the stain to create a small repair ring to remove it.

3. Improve the Halftone

Open the basic panel, according to the order from top to bottom to set the slider, adjust the picture tone. Color temperature 5200, hue +10, contrast-23, highlight-28, Shadow +16, White +8, black-13, natural saturation +32.

4, Save the file

Focusing the raw file directly on the stack takes time, and we'd better save the file in JPGE format first. Click the Store image button in the lower-left corner of the interface to set the destination Drop-down menu to be stored in the same location, set the format to JPGE, quality 12, and click Save.

5, Import Layer

When processing is complete, click the Finish button to return to the bridge interface. Hold down the CTRL key and click to select all of the JPEG files that we just saved. Execute menu command tools >Phptpshop> load files into phptpshop layer, open all photos in a new phptpshop document.

6, on the aligns layer

The next thing to do is to do further processing in Photoshop. After all the files have been loaded into the Phptpshop, perform window > layer. Select all layers, and then perform the Edit > Auto aligns Layer command. In this example, the default auto alignment mode meets our needs and clicks the OK button directly.

7. Remove edges

The automatic alignment command will align them according to the contents of each layer, but the edges of the alignment are somewhat cluttered. Select the Duke of Trim from the toolbar, right-click, set the trim scale to unrestricted from the pop-up menu, and then drag the mouse to create the trim box in the screen, removing the clutter edge.

8. Copy and Stack

Make sure all layers are still selected, drag them to the new layer button in the lower-right corner of the layer panel, and get 5 copy layers. Next, perform the Edit > Auto blend layer command, check the stacked image and the two options for seamless hue and color, and click the OK button. Photoshop will automatically look for the clearest part of the picture to synthesize.

9. Merging and renaming

When we complete the automatic blending layer, use the shortcut key ctrl+e to merge the selected 5 layers together. Double-click the merged layer label in the layer artboard to rename it to focus stacking. Magnifying the observation will be found in the picture there are a small number of inappropriate processing of the details of the part.

10, before and after comparison

Click on the eyeball icon in front of the focus stacking layer to hide it, contrasting the adjustments before and after the adjustment in order from top to bottom. First look at the first of the 5 images below, remember the clear area range in the picture, and then display the top sharpening layer again to check if all the clear parts are consistent.

11. Covering defects

If the clear area of the two graphs is exactly the same, use the shortcut key ctrl+e to merge the layers down. If not, click the Add Layer Mask button to add the mask, and then use the Black Brush tool to restore the clear details in the underlying layer, and then use the shortcut key ctrl+e to merge the layers down.

12. Merging layers

In turn, compare it to the clear part of the underlying layer and use the shortcut keys to ctrl+e the merge until the last layer is clear and consistent. Click the new Layer button in the lower-left corner of the layers panel to create a new, blank layer above the focus stack layer.

13. Draw the background

Select the Brush tool, hold down the ALT key on the Crimson stamens click the left mouse button selection color, or you can click the foreground color block in the toolbar to set the color directly, the color we use here is r:134; g:90; b:83. Smear in the upper-left and upper-right corners to cover the background of the original image roughly.

14, adjust the background

Select the Burn tool, set the range to midtones in the upper options bar, and set the exposure to 20%, using the tool to press the corners of the background. Then select the Dodge tool, also set the range to intermediate, exposure 20%, using the tool to highlight the background by the central part of the picture.

15. Create a selection

To perform the filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur command, set the radius to 20 pixels, and click the background layer that determines the fuzzy drawing of the button. Hide the layer and uncheck the "stacked focus" layer below. Use the quick selection tool to smear the background on both left and right sides, and select the background in a complete frame.

16, adjust the edge

After the selection is created, perform the Select > Adjust edges command, set the radius to 3 pixels in the pop-up window, and move the edge to +10. Set the output to the Drop-down menu as a selection and click OK. Re-select the background layer you just drawn and make it visible, and click the Add Layer Mask button below the layers panel to convert the selection to a mask.

17, trimming the picture

Click the New Layer button, select the Clone Stamp tool, set the sample Drop-down menu to all layers in the upper options bar, and then zoom in to check the middle portion of the image. Hold down the ALT key to select the clone source, and then apply the appropriate size brush to cover the withered part behind the stamens.

18, high Contrast sharpening

Merges all layers into a new replica layer. Perform filter > Other > High contrast retention, set the radius to 3 pixels in the pop-up dialog box, and click OK. The layer blending mode is then set to overlay the edge of the layer that is sharpened below.

Category:

• PS Image Processing