I have previously posted about focus stacking in regards to macro photography and studio photography in general, but I left off a small part that can be of considerable help to people doing photography in ‘the wild’.
When I was last in London, I had a chance to take what I thought was a pair of images of Trafalgar Square. In one I had one of the lions in focus with Elizabeth Tower in soft focus as the background. Another I took as an afterthought with Elizabeth Tower in focus with the lion in soft focus. I was not truly excited by either one and, being a rather drab day, thought maybe black and white was the way to go with one of them.
It was only after posting about the powerful tool of focus stacking in Photoshop that I thought about my shots from Trafalgar Square.
Now these were taken from generally the same position. Again, one was just an after thought; safety shot if you will. But then I thought maybe Photoshop could offer me an additional third image to consider. Using focus stacking, I was able to bring both Elizabeth Tower and the Trafalgar Lion into sharp focus. It wasn’t totally perfect and required a bit of cleaning up (and some strategic blurring), but a new exposure is now presentable.
So next time you are shooting and your focal point is questionable, try taking an image of both and use Photoshop to sort it out. The worst case scenario? You wasted a bit of space on your SD card.
I have some more thinking to do with this image as it appears to be way too clean and detailed, almost artificial. So maybe a bit of grain, noise or back to black and white. I guess time will tell.
Have a good week.
The Digital Lens 