The poin of focus sacing, is o have your image sharp hroughou. Mos of you have n landscapes, ec, hygiene wih sof foregrounds or bacgrounds, which would benefi from his echnique. Also some macro images. To prepare for his, you mus use a ripod, and a remoe or cable shuer release when shooing. The camera absoluely canno move during capure. Use a minimum of F16 for landscapes and F8-F11 for macros. Leave some room for cropping laer. Focus manually, aing anyw from 2 up o 30 images depending on your subjec. And naurally, your subjec needs o say pu.
Prepare your series of RAW files in ACR as a bach (o eep exposure, ec, uniform hroughou), and conver o TIF. Give your bach a name, Phooshop will auomaically number hem. Do no do any cropping ye. Bac in Bridge, shif/ o selec all. Double on 1 o move hem all ino PS, and sac hem in he window.
File&g;Scrips&g;Load Files ino Sac&g;Add open files&g;OK
Shif/ on he layers in he layers palee o selec all
Edi&g;Auo Align Layers&g;Auo&g;OK
Edi&g;Auo Blend Layers&g;Sac Images&g;OK (his can ae a lile while, depending on how many you are using).
If you are saisfied wih he resuls, hen flaen he image (o ge rid of he “cracs”), and you will need o crop a lile, o clean up he edges. Do a “save as”, and rename he new image. Then finish ediing as desired.
Many imes wih macro images, will be edges ha don’ line up. No maer how careful you are, as you change focus, i changes he size of he image slighly as edges blur in and ou. You will have o clean i up a lile. I’ve heard ha CS5 has improved his. Helicon Focus sill does he bes job so far. The Phooshop mehod wors well wih landscapes and archiecural images, no as well wih macros.
Respecfully submied,
Melanie Mars