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01-10-2020, 07:11 AM   #31
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QuoteOriginally posted by Sir Nameless Quote
I've also used Affinity for stacking and the results were less than stellar some of the few test images I tried. The issue was excessive ghosting around the high-contrast edges. I've done several stacks with Zerene stacker (the cheapest version is good enough) which has 2 stacking algorithms that work better in different circumstances. Even if you don't use Zerene, their website has a wealth of information about focus stacking that is worth reading.

If you want some samples of Zerene stacks, check out my flikr page, and look for the African Violet, Osteopernum (2 of them), and L. Camara. These were in the neighborhood of 5-20 images stacked.

I've seen examples of people stacking with Zerene into the 100s of images.
Do you have the Affinity Workbook? If the ghosting you describe is the same as a halo, that problem is discussed, and the solution described, on page 253 of the Workbook. It's quite easy to resolve. I have not done a huge amount of focus merging in Affinity, and none for macro work, only landscapes, but haven't encountered a ghosting or halo problem thus far.

01-10-2020, 08:02 PM   #32
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QuoteOriginally posted by wanderer2 Quote
Do you have the Affinity Workbook?
I don't. I probably didn't give Affinity a fair shake. I already had Zerene, so I just gave Affinity a try and didn't use it again. Maybe I'll revisit.
As far as the book goes, I thought about buying it, but it's a bit pricy, and software books tend to go out of date so fast....I figured I'd just get by on YouTube for now.
01-11-2020, 07:55 AM   #33
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Yes, the workbook is expensive and I find it sort of ironic that it's the same price as the software. In my case I bit the bullet and bought it because I learn much better from a printed page that from a video (tutorials). I have't regretted it and have used it so much that the binding had to be re-glued. At least it's a large book with lots of content. The teaching method is a little different than the usual manual - a lot of it (not all) is in the form of projects and how to do them rather than subject by subject.
01-13-2020, 07:15 AM   #34
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After stating above that I had never experienced a halo problem with focus merged landscape photos, by strange coincidence yesterday I experienced it. It was a mountain peak with a halo along one side of it that I had focus merged to get close pine trees, that framed the peak, in focus. The process described in page 253 of the Workbook, which uses the Clone Brush Tool, did eliminate it.

The description in the Workbook as to why this happens is as follows: "When an edge defocuses between images, it creates a contrast gradient that can sometimes confuses the Focus Merging algorithm into treating it as a desirable detail. This causes halos and contrast artifacts around edges."

01-28-2020, 08:47 PM   #35
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For all my stacking I use a program called Chasys Draw IES
Stacking for Focus Super resolution Moving objects HDR Image Averaging and more
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