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Hi,

I've been experimenting taking stacked images of flowers with E-M1 Mark II & 60mm macro. I've tried the different settings available in-camera and the individual images look okay (aligned & different focus plane) in LR/PS. The problem comes when I blend them in PS. Most of the final image looks great but certain areas just look like it has been painted. I've put an image in Flickr here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/138068378@N06/

Check out the areas where the petals of the front flower overlap the stalk. The edges between the two are not natural.

I tried creating masks and editing the areas of each image that are selected for the final merged image but give up as it takes way too long. If this is what you have to do to get those wonderful macro photos I see on Naturescapes I would go stark-raving mad. Are there setting I can try to reduce these artifacts? For example, change f-stop, # of images (I'm limited to 15 with E-M1 Mark II), PS setting? What about Helicon Focus or Serene Stacker, do they do a better job? I can use their free trials but would like some recommendations first.

Cheers,

Jim

Helicon is WAY better for this than the built in function of Photoshop and if it is off a little, the masking process is way faster and easier due to it's built in gray scale mask where you can visualize each layer and easily remove or add things from one layer or another. But in most cases it gets it right. You can always try it with the free trial.

Hi EJ,

Thanks for the comment. I tried Helicon and it produced much better results with "default" settings. No perfect but good enough for me at the moment. Will do a little more experimenting but I'm buying this program. If only I could free myself from Adobe all together!

There is an easy way to adjust the masks. After it does it's initial retouching, select the retouching tab and then click on the show depth map and you will see which picture which part of the image is coming from, you can then select and paint in pieces of a different picture. It's especially helpful on skies where the clouds have moved but also on other parts of the image where thing may have moved. This is very helpful:
https://www.heliconsoft.com/focus/help/ ... Focus.html

I use Zerene Stacker and very happy with the results there. I imagine the same as Helicon you can mask in or out certain elements either from individual layers or either of the two stacking methods. Its certainly worth a try of the trial, that way you can compare it with Helicon.

The other thing is although you are limited to 15 shots with Olympus where it stacks the image for you and also gives you the individual frames, it also has the option where it captures the frames for you however does not merge them. Here you can have up to 999 frames, more than sufficient I would imagine.

I use Helicon Focus 7 and I've had a problem with part of the image looking terrible with some of the macro shots, especially with a mushroom and the Calypso Orchid. Both have fuzzy areas that were not processing properly. What I discovered is that Helicon offers 3 different rendering methods; weighted average, depth map, and pyramid. I was using the option B, Depth Map, and when I switched to option C, Pyramid, it made a world of difference. I haven't experimented with Lightroom and Photoshop but I wonder if you aren't running into the same issue.Experiment with the different settings.

PullmanPhotographer wrote:I use Helicon Focus 7 and I've had a problem with part of the image looking terrible with some of the macro shots, especially with a mushroom and the Calypso Orchid. Both have fuzzy areas that were not processing properly. What I discovered is that Helicon offers 3 different rendering methods; weighted average, depth map, and pyramid. I was using the option B, Depth Map, and when I switched to option C, Pyramid, it made a world of difference. I haven't experimented with Lightroom and Photoshop but I wonder if you aren't running into the same issue.Experiment with the different settings.

From the Helicon manual which I linked above:

Here's a brief explanation of each method and its most typical applications:

- Method A computes the weight for each pixel based on its contrast and then forms the weighted average of all pixels from all source images. This method works better for short stacks and preserves contrast and color.

- Method B selects the source image containing the sharpest pixel and uses this information to form the "depth map". This method imposes strict requirements on the order of images - it should always be consecutive. Perfectly renders textures on smooth surfaces.

- Method C uses pyramid approach to image processing dividing image signals into high and low frequencies. Gives good results in complex cases (intersecting objects, deep stacks), though increases contrast and glare.

Thanks EJ. I hadn't read the manual but it does have some good information that helps one realize that Helicon Focus is a complicated tool. I wouldn't have made the jump from the statement "Gives good results in complex cases" when facing the problem of the image that just wouldn't render correctly. In hindsight I think it applies.The information in the manual has some good information on retouching.

Don't forget to retouch the images using the retouch tool. Usually, you can eliminate the foggy or fuzzy areas but if your steps are insufficient, you might be stuck with some areas. One thing to note comparing Zerene to Helicon is that Helicon is much much faster. Maybe I don't have Zerene set correctly, but asking it to crunch 150 tiffs from a Nikon Z7 is a very long process. Whereas Helicon handles it just fine.

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Don't forget to retouch the images using the retouch tool. Usually, you can eliminate the foggy or fuzzy areas but if your steps are insufficient, you might be stuck with some areas. One thing to note comparing Zerene to Helicon is that Helicon is much much faster. Maybe I don't have Zerene set correctly, but asking it to crunch 150 tiffs from a Nikon Z7 is a very long process. Whereas Helicon handles it just fine.

Helicon is really effective at using many GPU cores as well as CPU cores, none of the others are.

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Don't forget to retouch the images using the retouch tool. Usually, you can eliminate the foggy or fuzzy areas but if your steps are insufficient, you might be stuck with some areas. One thing to note comparing Zerene to Helicon is that Helicon is much much faster. Maybe I don't have Zerene set correctly, but asking it to crunch 150 tiffs from a Nikon Z7 is a very long process. Whereas Helicon handles it just fine.

Helicon is really effective at using many GPU cores as well as CPU cores, none of the others are.

The speed difference is astonishing, so much so that I've quit using Zerene. Plus Helicon works as a plugin for Capture One which saves time. I tried 150 tiffs from a Z7 and after 3 or 4 hours, I terminated Zerene because it was taking so long. Helicon on the other hand took a few minutes.

Yeah, I think part of the reason they are so fast and went the route of fully exploiting cores, threads, etc... is because of their affiliation with Phase One (Phase One camera owners get it for free). Those cameras have had built in focus stacking for many years, long before any mainstream manufacturer had it, and their databacks move insane amounts of data and they are all 16 bit too opposed to 14 bit...

I tried the three methods described by EJ and definitely found #3 to be the best for my images. And yes I am astonished just how quickly they are stacked by HeliconFocus. Thanks again as I was about to give up.

Jim