

Stacks it is a set of pictures all of which have the same dimensions (they all have the same width and the same height). Windows has CombineZM, which is free focus stacking software, but the two solutions I found out there for the Mac are not free, and I don't wanna pay for software that I won't use that often yet. From the developer: CombineZP it is designed to process Stacks of digital images. best merged with a specialized software, such as TuFuse, Helicon Focus or CombineZM. Based on this early observation I suspect that subjects with shiny parts are not suitable for focus stacking. The latest version of CombineZP is supported on PCs running Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10, 32-bit. Focus stacking is similar to High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. A longer focal length lens and a very shallow depth of field result in a pinpoint focal plane and often leave crucial elements of the image slightly soft.

I believe that the problem is the bokeh of the foreground messing with the reconstruction software. Focus stacking is taking multiple photos at the same exposure but at different focal lengths and is best applied for macro photography. You should see one of them appear in the CombineZM window. It seems that the software tried to average the images and it turned out very wrong. In CombineZM, choose File, New and select the photos you just shot. The current release is CombineZP, successor to CombineZM which was based on CombineZ5. So sometimes, there will be no possible way to get some areas with sharp detail - it's not a perfect algorithm and works better with some subjects than others.Įither clone in detail (maybe from a shot at f22), don't try and stack so deep, or live with it.Īnd just above the watch out from the '7' you'll spot a bit of background where it's similarly picked the sharpest bit it could find from the foreground blur of the watch - not what you want for the background, but easily fixed.īelow the watch there is a part that has a lot of artifacts. CombineZ is Free software image processing software package for creating extended depth of field images. You can make measurements, resize, reduce noise, remove dust spots, alter contrast and brightness, overlay text etc.
#Combinezm focus stack movie
Check your images - you'll see that the shots that would have had those regions in focus, can sometimes be obscured by the bokeh of foreground elements (the bokeh is bigger than the same infocus foreground element) CombineZM is more than just an image stacking software that allows you to present your pictures in various different formats including still, 3D, movie and as a slide show. I took 12 exposures of the nuts and combined them using CombineZM software. Blurred spots will occur if your areas of focus don't actually overlap.īut detail in the background, can sometimes always be blurred.
