OMG why didn’t I know about this??!!
Thank you so much for sharing. This will make my life easier. Holy crap.
Back to this thread to 'fess up.
As time consuming as it can be to get the images you need in the field, don’t rush it. I did with a great little scene I found this winter and I blew it by not paying attention to the actual depth of the image, not just the subject.
It was a cute little tuft of moss on a tree. The bark was uniformly covered with a pale, powdery lichen that really made the moss stand out. Trouble was I was so fixated on getting the depth of the moss covered that I forgot about the bark. The deepest cracks (about 1/4 inch) were OOF because I didn’t allow for enough shots in the bracketing sequence to get to it and I didn’t begin a sequence either with the deepest cracks or to include them. Bah. Stoopid rookie mistake.
I’ve messed more with this recently so have come back to your question. I think my original reply to you was more about the Contrast Threshold which I have also experimented with. So I will try to be better -
With regard to Estimation and Smoothing. The E.R. is the size area around a pixel in which Zerene will look for another pixel with sharp detail (contrast). The higher the E.R. number the larger the gap of pixels between where it looks for detail. So if you have a tightly packed subject like some pointy lichen or a dense florette, I’d keep it at the standard 10/5 or go slightly lower if you want it all in focus. Going higher is interesting and it misses more areas of detail, but the background or OOF areas is very smooth. You could start with this DMap and paint in PMax details if you wanted. I should play with this more.
Smoothing Radius is exactly that - where does Zerene begin to smooth the areas of crisp focus together. The software sets it at exactly 1/2 of your Estimation Radius, but that can be changed as well. So far I haven’t gone off the 1/2 rule and just let the E.R. slider point the S.R. slider as well.
What I have played with more is the Contrast Threshold which is set in the second step of the DMap action. I’ve found that if you crank it way up you can eliminate that oh so maddening goopy background and a lot of the haloing that can happen when the DMap image chooses the OOF bg closest to the edge of something sharp and the next part of the stack chooses an OOF bg farther away. By bringing in the black masking edge right on or even slightly into a subject you get rid of those halos.
Sometimes I’ve set the threshold in the 90s. Sometimes a lot of the subject itself is covered in black, but that’s not masking the stacking process itself, only the contrast which is going to be ignored. So the resulting DMap stack might be a bit flat and have some areas that need to be retouched with PMax detail. Who cares?! This saves me a HUGE amount of fussy retouching with the background and fixing haloes.
I often run several DMap stacks so I can start with the cleanest image. I use DMap for the better color rendition and the fact that it doesn’t add too much noise like a PMax does. But PMax handles crossing detail better and has better contrast for some things.
Which brings me to Slabbing. But that’s a whole other thing that I’ll have to write up separately. I’ve been working on it a while and experimenting so I won’t get to it right away. It’s a really cool technique though and has some advantages in reducing retouching time and allowing you to process the Slabs or Sub-stacks in a RAW editor before stacking those.
Hi Keith, I’m coming late to this conversation, but my version of LR (probably newer than the one back in Oct 2021) doesn’t seem to have this feature. Am I missing something?
thanks.
Allen:
This function has been around for a long time in LightRoom Classic. I’m attaching a screen shot. If you don’t see it: Are you in LightRoom or LightRoom Classic? This is only available in LightRoom Classic. I can’t think of a reason you would not be able to see it. What version of LightRoom Classic are you on? The current version is 11.5.
Hi Keith,
I’m on Lightroom Classic v11.5. Here’s my screen shot. Quit different from yours. In addition to not having the same features under “photo” the next tab is not metadata but settings. Any thoughts on why the difference?
Thanks.
You are in Develop. Go to Library.
LOL. Thanks. So simple.
Don’t think I ever said thanks for the information, @Kris_Smith! I’ve copied it to a Word doc and will give it a careful look. Focus stacks are a regular technique now that it’s so easy with the R5.
Hey, no problem Diane. This is what we’re all here to do, learn and improve. I just blew it not following my own advice in the field the other day and now the fungi in question is well beyond its freshness date so next year it will be. Luckily it is fruiting on a tree in the yard and so if I remember I’ll get it.
Sometimes bugs move around during focus bracketing and make for some nice little surprises when I’m reviewing the shots or doing the stacking. Here are a couple of near 100% crops of a 1-inch wide bit of fungus growing on a log.
First the un-retouched stack -
And retouched putting the bug in one spot -
Actually there are a couple more bugs on the move there, but they are harder to see because they are pale pink. Mites I think.
At the top of the formation was another bit of buggy movement -
And frozen into place -
Just some fun stuff uncovered during the stacking process. Tentative fungi ID = Pycnoporellus alboluteus
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A related problem I’ve encountered is the result of focus breathing (changes in zoom) at different focus points. Stacking programs will compensate for the zoom but a sensor spot will make a diagonal streak.
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Yeah, those red/blue/green streaks are frustrating, but easy to fix either in Zerene or in Ps. My workflow lately is to put the resulting retouched stack right into Photoshop to correct any issues like that and spruce them up in general since they usually need it.
Was going to do a post about slabbing, but realized I missed a bit of focus in my 3 bracketing sessions and it’s really obvious and basically in the middle of the image. Bah. Lesson learned. When I know I’m going to need a lot of images, just start at the beginning, set a big number and let 'er rip! I have no idea why I got into the habit of breaking it up. The camera will do 999 if I want it to and I have the battery power. I am my own worst enemy sometimes.
I am spending a lot of time editing individual files of a stack before merging them. I understand that there is a way of editing one file and having Lightroom propagate those same changes to all the files in a stack prior to the merge. Can anyone refer to any instruction videos or documents on how to do this? Thanks
The easiest way is to use the Sync feature in the Develop module. While on your source photo, shift or ctrl click and highlight the other shots you want to use the same settings for and then hit the Sync button in the bottom tool tray -
When you do you’ll have a big check box list come up with the items you want to apply across all the photos you’ve selected. If you’ve done any masking you’ll have to click that box separately and then the masks will come over. If you don’t want all of them, you can uncheck the box for the one you don’t want. That goes for all of the editing items.
For applying one photo’s editing settings to just one other photo, I sometimes use the Previous button that appears in the Sync button’s place when there aren’t any other pictures selected. The big check box doesn’t make an appearance for this.
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More learning the hard way!
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I thought I’d drop this here for folks -
It’s a live stream that I won’t be able to attend because of time differences, but maybe some of you can and then maybe I can view it later. Allan always has interesting ideas and techniques and he’s a master with Zerene.
The live stream was a bit of a disaster, but I think eventually they got it -
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Thank you. Good idea to move the discussion. I will check all of these out.