Originally posted by lnorton You have mentioned focus stacking in the past - do you mind sharing your workflow when you incorporate focus stacking?
Laurence,
Here is a rough write-up of the process,
First, run a series of tests on the lens you would like to use.
Tape a small patch of tick marks on your lens (as shown in the pic) so that you will be able to remember and go back to a specific focus setting for your lens.
Choose a place with noticeable textures or objects in the foreground so that you can identify if any spot is in or out of focus. Set up a few targets (or just pick some objects in the foreground), measure and remember their distances from the camera using a long tape measure or laser distance meter.
An example of laser distance meter :
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=leica+distance+meter&hl=en&rls=com....d=0CJ8BEPMCMAA#
Now take a number of shots with different focus settings (at different tick marks) and analyze them to figure out the DOF of each shot (each setting). Since DOF is something somewhat subjective to the photographer himself and viewers, you have to establish your own standards.
In the field, carry a laser distance meter or try ballparking the distance to your nearest foreground and also estimate the distance to the farest background, which will give you the necessary DOF for that specific shot. Based on your knowledge, take multiple shots that will cover the required DOF.
Load the images into one Photoshop file, choose the one with background (or most coverage) as your background layer. Now you have multiple layers in your file, select (ctrl+click in the layer window) them all (or one pair of a foreground layer and the background layer at a time), go to 'Edit' -> 'Auto Align Layers' -> 'Auto'. This will resize your foreground layer(s) to fit the background layer (if the auto align doesn't work, you can also manually align it).
Now you can use a conventional layer mask to seletively (manual) blend, or go to 'Edit' -> 'Auto Blend Layers' -> 'Auto' to automatically blend them. Please keep in mind that the foreground layers are always a tad smaller in size than the background layer, so make sure to crop the photo properly (in case you are using the auto blending, you may want to do this right before merging to avoid blurry edges).
Some folks seem to use specialized focus-stack softwares, but I don't have any experiences them. Hope this helps and let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
- Hark