The class was held and recorded on December 15, 2021 at 7 pm via a live on the Photo Pills YouTube channel.

In the first part of the class I presented myself as a landscape photographer and the topic I was going to talk about.

Then I showed a roundup of examples regarding the different types of focus stacking. At the end I demonstrated how to merge a “hard focus stacking”, as I call it.

Focus stacking is a photo and editing technique in which two or more images with different focus points each are blended.
Its use can be applied in different situations of various complexity and depends on the type of point of view from which we want to take the shot.
To explain why focus stacking is useful, I have to introduce the concept of plans in the picture.

In a landscape picture, there are several plans, more or less distant from our lens. 

But the important thing is that the plans are one in front of the other and it is precisely for this reason that the camera is able to focus perfectly on only one of these.

This happens even at apertures such as f / 16. This is especially the case when we photograph with a wide angle, as its view is really wide and its effect is more three-dimensional.

But we may need focus stacking even in the case of longer focal lengths if we not only photograph plans of the image that are all very far away but also include plans that are much closer than the others in the image.

The plans can be also more than 3 or 4, depending on the position of the subjects. 

A photo is taken with a different focus point for each plan and merged in Photoshop with masks or with software and plug-ins that combine them.

I have defined two different epithets for each type of focus stacking.

The simple focus stacking is a very simple situation in which you just have to combine the different shots that differ only in the point of focus.

In this case you can combine everything in a single shot using the masks in Photoshop or special softwares and plug-ins.

In the case of hard focus stacking, however, the difference between the shots is not only the focus point but also the position of some elements in the foreground that changes from shot to shot due to the wind. A very common example are flowers that move even slightly from one shot to the next.

For this reason, when we create masks to hide the blurry parts of a layer in Photoshop, as I showed in the Photo Pills YouTube class video, we will end up with blurry duplicates of the sharp elements. The consequence of this is a long process of correction with the clone stamp after creating the masks.

Many people, before and after the class with Photo Pills, have asked me if I use softwares like Helicon Focus or Zerene Stacker that automatically merge the images with focus in different points.

These softwares would also clone the blurry “duplicates” of the foreground elements that move due to the wind.

In fact, I have found these softwares very useful in many situations and my favorite is Helicon.

In the future, I will write a review about both to show you how they work and what limitations they have.

In short, in most of the situations I have anyway to correct several things in the final files from these softwares, so I prefer to use my “time-consuming” technique anyway.

I recommend paying close attention to the final file resulting from the blending processes of these softwares.

Look carefully at the whole image with a high percentage of zoom. Of course, it’s up to you which path to take and the degree of perfection you want to have in your final photos.

Personally, I don’t seek perfection only in low resolution and my purpose is always to look for original points of view, never seen before, which are often very complicated to transpose into a photograph.

But this is my vision. What matters to me is the result my photos will have in the printing phase and in a high resolution file.

WHY DO I THINK IT’S REALISTIC

There is no technique that makes an image more realistic than focus stacking. A picture which has everything in focus has an incredible quality and detail.

When I am in a place I want to recover all the details of my landscape, from the flowers to the mountain peaks.

Of course, sometimes, I tried shooting without focus stacking, blurring the foreground, although I find it a much more imaginative effect and I don’t like using it in too many photos.

WHY SHOULD SOME PEOPLE THINK IT’S NOT REALISTIC?

I am convinced that many think that the more time you dedicate to a photo, the more reality is alterated. They are wrong!

If anything, a lot of time is spent editing an image just to be sure to recover all the details and information in each individual element, making a picture visually impressive but natural.

What people don’t like about hard focus stacking?

The point is that many want the immediate result, without the least effort, with as many automatisms as possible and without having to spend too much time on a photograph for the most varied reasons.

A technique that, at times, takes so long, is certainly frightening and confusing.

We are too used to making every activity we do daily automatic and immediate that anything that requires time and dedication makes us flee.

Instead, it is important to understand that to obtain the results that make the difference, it almost always takes a lot of work and perseverance, in everything. And in the end, there is nothing more satisfying than the good result we get.

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