I have used PhotoAcute Studio for jobs involving focus stacking, or extended DOF (depth of field). It did a better job for me than other programs out there, even though it wasn't perfect. I still have to be prepared to do plenty of hand-masking. Like all programs, including PS, it can't read your mind. So I was very interested to hear that Photoshop CS4 now included the ability to stack images with different DOF. So I availed myself of the 30-day demo and took it for a spin.

My first test is a side-by side comparison of a focus stack using 4 exposures. I'll be doing a tutorial on using PhotoAcute before long, but here's the process in Photoshop CS4:

1. Select your series of developed images (in my case, they're tiffs) in Adobe Bridge CS4. Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshop layers. Hooray! I've wanted this feature for a long time.

2. Once it's all in PS: Edit > Auto Align Layers. If you leave this step out of a focus stacking, you'll be sorry.

3. Now you can Edit > Auto Blend Layers, and select the "Stacking" button. 

4. You'll be returned with nicely masked layers (love it!), optimized for the focused areas of your exposures. Optimized, but not perfectly. Again, if you're a fusspot, you'll want to be prepared for some hand-masking work.

How all this compares with PhotoAcute

As you can see from the side-by-side snapshot, the Photoshop stack on the left has better detail and less distortion, but some edges need work. With the masks ready to go in the layered PS file, this is much easier.

The PhotoAcute shot is on the right, and you can see the distortion, but better blending. Using PhotoAcute, I've had some images skew to the point of objects being pushed out of the canvas entirely, and had to modify our photography to allow for it. I will do some further tests before posting a verdict.

 

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Yes, we are far away. Further away than we initially thought we would be. We'd planned to blog as we go, yet most places we find ourselves in have no mobile or internet reception whatever. If there is any, it's very sporadic and drops out in a few minutes. So we're sorry if you're checking in for updates and tutorials—there won't be any till we are back in civilization! Photography is going crackers. Crazy daisies up north of Perth, lightning storms and whales and prostrate banksias down south. Every kind of imaginable flower and seed pod and leaf in between! It's been fabulous. We'll just have to keep on photographing and catch up with the website soon!

 We are currently around the Walpole area of southern Western Australia. Big trees at last! We are very, very happy with the material we have gathered along this trip. We hope to present some truly amazing photographs of Western Australian wildflowers as they have never been seen before: almost a bee's-eye-view, in some cases. It's astounding—some flowers you would dismiss from the roadside as rather uninteresting; yet up close (which is our arena) you see the most glorious details. Worlds within worlds... there is so much out there. If you only take the time to look. We've had many table-thumping conversations about this lately: who really does stop to look? We are all so busy going so fast, we only have time to have an "expert" interpret for us whilst we're on the run. Just give us a few, easily digestible morsels to give us an impression that we've been there... How few of us have the trust in our own instincts to just sit; without guidebooks or guides; in nature and absorb and interpret it for ourselves?

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We're off north of Perth! Wildflowers are starting to appear. The further north we go, the more there is. Looks like we'll be catching the wave of flowering at the right time. Thankfully, there's been bumper rainfall, heralding better than usual wildflowers. So far (as far as Green Head) there are unbelievable fields of wattle as far as the eye can see, dense clumps of smokebush in Leseur National Park, featherflowers, cat's paws... and initial work with expanded depth-of-field (focus stacking) looks great.

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Here you will find links to tutorials on image editing software we use, and equipment we love.

 ***Sorry to all coming to this page expecting good stuff! We are currently on an expedition in remote, remote Western Australia—and photographing madly—but also madly taking notes about our methods for forthcoming tutorials; and as soon as we have reliable internet connection, we will be updating the site with great stuff! Stay tuned!***

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Preparing to hit the road

Plans are now in place for our big adventure to Western Australia to begin our Biodiversity project—photographing for a new series of fine art prints and a book about our impressions of wildflower country. We'll be calling upon all our new skills in HDR, focus stacking and panorama techniques in the production of this work—very exciting! We will record our progress and methodology as we go along in this here blog, and will include workflow notes and tutorials, new software developments & the use thereof, and eBooks about specific techniques and the creation of selected images.

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