BEFORE

Into this butterfly:

AFTER

 

Okay, so let’s open-up Adobe Photoshop and see what we need to do to “repair” damaged butterflies (you will need to click on the images below, in order to see them full-size and understand the techniques):

STEP ONE: Use your Lasso Tool

The first thing to repair is the damaged tail on the left. To do this, we are going to borrow from the good tail on the right, copying it, by first defining the area to be copied with the Lasso Tool.

Step2: Once this area to be copied is defined by the Lasso Tool, go to Edit > Copy and simply “copy” the tail onto your clipboard.

Step 3: From there you want to go to File > New and create a “new file” which will be nothing but the right tail of the butterfly. However, before you do this make sure that the background you have selected for the new file of the butterfly’s tail has been set to Transparent:

STEP 4: Caution

The reason why it is imperative to make sure the background of the new image is set to “Transparent,” is because (if it’s set to white) then all of that white will be brought over to your image, when you copy back onto the clipboard, which you don’t want. However, if the background is set to transparent, then only your selection (namely, the tail with no background at all) will be brought back when you re-copy & paste, which is what you do want. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!

STEP 5: Place the New Image

When you place the new image down, you can tell that the background is transparent by the fact it will be gray-and-white squares surrounding the image (whereas it would be solid white otherwise). Now, it’s all fine and dandy that we have this here tail, but at this point it is still a right hindwing tail, and our poor butterfly needs a left hindwing tail, so we need to correct this. Which brings us to Step 6:

Step 6: In order to change this “right” butterfly tail into a “left” butterfly tail, we need to go to Image > Image Rotation > Flip Canvas Horizontal, which turns the right tail into its mirror-opposite, now giving us our desired left Swallowtail

STEP 7: Copy the New Left Tail

Once we have a left tail to add to our butterfly, we simply use our Rectangular Marquee Tool to highlight the entire new image so that we can go to Edit > Copy and  copy our new left tail onto our clipboard. Next we go back to the Master Image of the complete butterfly, and place the new left tail of our tattered butterflyonto the Master Image by selecting  Edit > Paste from our drop-down menu:

STEP 8: Place the "new" Left Tail onto the Master Image

Okay, so we switched back over to our Master Image and “pasted” the new tail onto it. It is important that you now take note of the 3 red arrows: 1) the left arrow indicates the Move Tool; 2) the middle arrow indicates the newly-pasted tail for our tattered butterfly, while 3) the third arrow indicates that a New Layer was just added to our Master Image as reflected in the Layers Panel. (It is imperative that you leave the “new layer” as-is for the time being: in other words, don’t flatten yet.) Okay, after the paste we now select the Move Tool we move our butterfly tail to where it belongs, and then it is time to select a very special tool: the Free Transform Tool:

STEP 9: Select the Free Transform Tool

The Free Transform Tool is selected by choosing  Edit > Free Transform  from the drop-down menu. What this tool allows you to do is grab the corners of your image, and then rotate that image by the chosen corner to its desired angle before placement. In other words, as initially placed, the converted right tail of the Giant Swallowtail is not at the proper angle to match where the (missing) left tail would have been … and so the Free Transform tool allows you to rotate the new tail to its desired angle for placment. (This is best done when viewing @ 100%.)

Once you have the angle of the “new tail” adjusted perfectly to the butterfly, oftentimes there will be “excess background” from the copied image that does not match the area of the placement. This is why it is important to keep the layers at this point (because all of your editing will only affect the newly-placed layer, not the Master Image underneath.) To remove the excess “background” from the newly-placed tail, you will need to employ your Quick Selection Tool from the Tools Panel:

STEP 10: Select the Quick Selection Tool

After you select the Quick Selection Tool, drag it across the area you wish to cut out. Once you delineate a section you want to cut out, then go to  Edit > Cut  from your drop-down menu and get rid of it:

STEP 11: Cut-out any unwanted background.

Because of the extra layer, any cutting you do will only affect the new layer, not the Master Layer underneath. Repeat this procedure until ALL of the unwanted background has been removed:

STEP 12: Keep cutting unwanted background until perfect.

Now your tail is almost perfect! You will notice, however, that there is a slight blemish to the newly-constructed left tail, which was a patch of leaf that was over the original right tail. To correct this imperfection, we wll now need to use the Heal Tool:

STEP 13: Use the Heal Tool to repair imperfections ...

Once you select your Heal Tool, you will need to adjust the size of the head:

STEP 14: Adjust the Head Size on the Heal Tool

After you adjust the head size on the Heal Tool, you will then hover it over a perfect section of the new tail, hold down the Alt Key on your keyboard and left-click, which will then load the Heal Tool with the desired effect. You then take this perfect selection of the tail, hover the Heal Tool over the flaw, and left-click your mouse again to “Heal” the flawed element of the tail:

STEP 15: "Heal" the flaws.

Once you have finally touched-up and “healed” the new left tail of the Swallowtail, you may now Flatten Your Image:

STEP 16: Flatten Your Image

To Flatten Your Image, go to  Layers > Flatten Image  in your dropdown menus, which will reduce the two layers you had into one layer.

Step 17: Once your image has now been compressed into one layer, it is time to use the Heal Tool again to “heal” the imperfect elements of the butterfly all over. For example, the upper wing areas of this particular butterfly had lots of color rubbed-off, so I used the Heal Tool to select areas of the upper wing that were good and used them to “heal” areas of the upper wing that were bad:

BEFORE HEALING

AFTER HEALING

You can be as thorough, or as lax, as you want to be with the supplemental healing. Me personally, I try to heal the obviously-bad areas of the butterfly, but I want to leave certain areas of imperfection so that the subject looks real and not “too” perfect. (This, of course, will be your own judgment call.)

In the end, with the right techniques, you can turn a once-tattered butterfly into a sensational specimen and presentation

I hope this tutorial serves you well!

Jack

.

I have just completely upgraded my Florida Insects Calendar for 2012, adding all new images of some of Florida’s most amazing predatory insects (assassin bugs and mantids!). Each insect photographed was a pristine specimen captured in absolutely optimal lighting. At full-size, these images are simply stunning! [Here is a sample of a full-size image that will display the exceptional quality you can expect from this calendar (only a small part of the butterfly will be shown).]

The 2012 Florida Insect Calendar can be presented on high-quality gloss paper or with a beautiful linen-like finish, and it also comes in two sizes: Standard (11″ x 17″ for $25) and Giant (13.5″ x 19″ for $35). Prices include shipping.

Support your local artists by ordering your calendars directly from the photographers … here’s where to order :)

Cheers!

Jack

.

I have just completely upgraded my Florida Amphibians Calendar for 2012, depicting some of Florida’s most interesting frogs and toads. Each image is a clean shot of a different animal taken in optimal lighting, and at full-size, these images are simply stunning! [Here is a sample of a full-size image that will display the exceptional quality you can expect from this calendar (only a small part of the frog is shown).]

The 2012 Florida Amphibians Calendar can be presented on high-quality gloss paper or with a beautiful linen-like finish, and it also comes in two sizes: Standard (11″ x 17″ for $25) and Giant (13.5″ x 19″ for $35). Prices include shipping.

Support your local artists by ordering your next year’s calendars directly from the photographers … here’s where to order

Cheers!

Jack

.

I have just completely upgraded my Florida Butterflies Calendar for 2012, adding all new images of some of Florida’s most beautiful butterflies (and moths!). Each butterfly photographed was a pristine specimen captured in absolutely optimal lighting. At full-size, these images are simply stunning! [Here is a sample of a full-size image that will display the exceptional quality you can expect from this calendar (only a small part of the butterfly will be shown).]

The 2012 Florida Butterfly Calendar can be presented on high-quality gloss paper or with a beautiful linen-like finish, and it also comes in two sizes: Standard (11″ x 17″ for $25) and Giant (13.5″ x 19″ for $35). Prices include shipping.

Support your local artists by ordering your calendars directly from the photographers … here’s where to order

Cheers!

Jack

.

Go into your Windows Menu and select Actions ...

The first thing you do is go into your Windows Menu and select Actions. The reason why selecting “Actions” is important is, if you record everything you do in the “Actions” panel, all you have to do next time is click the “Action” button, and the next watermark/copyright you do will be automatic!  (This will save you a tremendous amount of time in the future, believe me.) Okay, now that you have opened-up your Actions panel, it is time for you to select the image that you want to place your copyright watermark on:

Once you select your image, then create a New Set in your Actions Panel

Creating a New Set in your Actions Panel allows you to categorize all of your similar Actions (in this case, you will group all of your Copyright Watermark Actions into one Set). Now that you have established a New Set, you then need to create a New Action:

Then Create a New Action within your New Set ...

Since this a set of Copyright Actions, and since this image is 800 px wide, and since the year is 2011, I have named this set “Copyright 800 2011” to remind me what this particular Action does. (This kind of vigilance early on will be important to help you distinguish what-is-what if you develop multiple “Copyright Actions” for different-sized files over time.) You will also notice that the red Record Button is now on. From here you are going to select the Custom Shape Tool from the “Tools” Panel:

Then select the Custom Shapes Tool from the "Tools" Panel ...

Then select the Copyright Symbol from the Shapes Menu ...

Then select what color you want your symbol to be from the Swatches Palette ...

Remember, everything you do will be recorded in 2 places: 1) your Action Panel that you’re creating as well as 2) in the Layers Panel. It is important to watch both of these carefully! (Also, if you decide to work on something else for a minute, remember to “stop” your Action–otherwise all of this outside work on another image will be recorded in your Action too, for it records EVERYTHING you do. This is why, if you decide to create an Action, it is best to make sure you have enough time to finish it, otherwise you will later add things to the Action that you didn’t intend to!)

Anyway, you may now place your Copyright symbol to your image with your Custom Shape Tool:

Now place your Copyright Symbol with the Custom Shape Tool ...

Then go to the Layers Panel and reduce the Opacity to 50% ...

Move to the left while in the Layers Panel and change the lighting to Soft Light ...

Then move to the lower left of the Layers Panel and select "Bevel and Emboss" from the pulldown menu ...

When the Layer Style menu pops up, change the Depth to 500% ...

*PRESTO* Now you have a beveled and embossed Copyright Symbol

Once you have your Copyright Symbol placed where you want it to be, then you are going to select the Text function from the “Tools” Panel and then you’re going to go to the Windows Menu and select the Character Panel to be displayed so that you can choose what kind of font you want, as well as to re-size the text to suit you:

Select the Text Tool from the Tools Panel and then open the Character Panel from the Windows Menu ...

You can now enter your copyright information onto your image. NOTE: many people do not enter their wording correctly. (They just put a copyright symbol and their name.) If I just putting © John Koerner it means nothing. You must put THE YEAR in there for the copyright logo to have any meaning. Therefore, I enter © 2011 John A. Koerner II, which is the proper way to display a copyright claim. Natually, you shoould do the same thing, just put your name on your own images, not mine

Next, just repeat all the same steps for Opacity, Soft Light, and Bevel & Emboss that you did on the symbol ...

Then all you do is repeat the steps you did for the symbol (regarding Opacity, Soft Light, plus Bevel and Emboss) in the “Layers” Panel, to your Year and Name, and they are now both watermarked and beveled also. From here, if you wish, you can then add your website to your image as well, so you can direct any viewers to your home page:

You can then repeat the same process and add your Website ...

You are almost done now, but not quite! From here, you should now Flatten all of these Layers by selecting this option from the Layers Menu (not Panel):

You should now Flatten your image from the Layers Menu pulldown ...

The last step is to change the Metadata inside the actual image. This will put a Copyright Logo on the upper left corner of the image, and it will also give as much information about yourself and your copyright as you care to enter-in. Here are the final steps:

Go to the File Menu pulldown and select File Info ...

Make sure you change the Copyright Status to "Copyrighted" ...

You can then fill-in whatever Copyright Notice details you want ...

Now "Save" your file and then STOP the ACTION.

Congratulations, you are now FINISHED with the image! At this point, make sure you click “Save” in the File Menu and then STOP YOUR ACTION!

Copyright Watermark is now in place

With your Action now completed, you will never have to go through this process again! How so? Well, check this out:

The next time you need to add a copyright watermark, all you have to do is Push a Button

The reason why making sure you save all of your steps as an “Action” is so that you will never have to go through all of these steps again! Now, with your Action in place, he next time you want to make a Copyright Watermark on another image, all you do is re-size the image to the same 800 pix width, and then go to your Actions Panel. From there, select the appropriate “Action” (in this case, Copyright 800 2011), and click the “Play” button … and instantly all of these steps are automatically carried out by your computer! And *presto* now you have your Copyright Watermark:

Instant Copyright Watermark, with the click of a button

The Actions Panel is a tremendous, time-saving tool for the serious photographer, because the number of “Actions” you can create (so you never have to repeat long processes again) is limitless. If you regularly are adjusting photographs, and if you save as many of your mundane “common steps” into Actions as you can, you will dramatically improve your productivity and workflow, because now you can just push a button to get you the same results it took you 10-15 minutes to get previously.

In closing, I hope this Copyright Watermark tutorial has been beneficial to you!

Jack

Focus stacking in Adobe CS5 Extended is pretty simple. Suppose you have a beautiful flower you would like to compose, but you want the entire flower in-focus with none of it blurred. However, because of the complexity and number of “heads” to this flower you know this is impossible to do with one image. So you set your tripod and decide to take multiple images of this same flower, each with a different part of the flower in-focus, like so:

Focus Point 1

Focus Point 2

Focus Point 3

etc.
etc.
etc.

Focus Point 7

I took seven (7) photos in total of this same flower (a Scarlet Milkweed) for this demonstration, and then I loaded all of the raw files into Adobe Lightroom 3, made some initial adjustments. After I minimally processed the raw images, I then exported the 7 files (as 16-bit .tiff images) into Adobe CS5 Extended so I could “stack” them all together into one clean image and then process it as a final work. The reason why the ability to stack is such a cool feature for the macro shooter is because (if you look carefully at all of the above images), when “one or two” elements are “in”-focus other elements are not. So by stacking them all together with the Adobe CS5 Extended program, I am able to get the whole flower in focus. Here’s how:

Go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack...

Go to the File Menu and then go to Scripts and finally to Load Files into Stack. After you click on this selection, you will then browse your hard drive to select the group of photos you wish to combine and load them into the stacker:

Make sure you highlight ALL of the files you want to be stacked ...

After you have selected all of the files for your project, they will all load into Adobe Photoshop, but you will only come out with “one” image on your screen (usually the first image of the stack). However, if you look in your Layers panel, you will see 7 total files have been loaded, with 6 under the lead image. In order to run the stack you will then need to select all 7 files (see red circle, below):

Select & highlight ALL 7 Files in the Layers Panel ...

Once you have all 7 files (or however many are in your stack) highlighted, then go to the Edit Menu and select Auto Align Layers:

Go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers

Choose "Auto" ...

When the screen pops up, choose “Auto Align” and then let Adobe CS5 do its work. What the program is doing is calculating any movement or change of position to the images, and then will re-align each layer so that each one is properly positioned under the next layer, so that the entire stack will align true. When it is done, it will spit out the following result:

You will notice that all the files have "shifted" ... (see red arrows)

You will notice that all of the files have shifted their position, which means they are now perfectly aligned for the “stack”–but you are NOT done yet   From here, go back into the Edit Menu and and choose Auto-Blend Layers:

Then go to Edit > Auto-Blend Layers

When the window pops up choose "Stack Images"

When you click on the “Stack Images” option, make sure that the Seamless Tones and Colors box is also checked. After that, then once again let the Adobe CS5 program do its work … and this time your image will be completely stacked and completely clear. However, because this is a layered stack, you still can’t do anything with it until you flatten the image, so here’s how:

Click on the Layers Menu > Flatten Image

Now you will notice that you only have 1 Layer ...

You have now aligned, and then blended, your photo stack into one image–and then flattened it into a usable form. However, in this example, because the outside edges are all mis-aligned, you still have some work to do … which is easy as pie to fix with the Clone and Heal tools:

Use the Clone and Heal Tools to clean-up the outside edges ...

The Clone and Heal Tools “copy” the surrounding areas and “paste” them to the areas you need them to, and beautifully-blend the outside edges with the bokeh to complete the work. This effort only takes a few minutes (and is only necessary if there was severe subject movement, as was the case with this breeze-blown flower, even though I was using a tripod). Once you are done using the heal tool, you are ready to go to work on your final “stacked” image, with all of the areas now in-focus:

The Final Clean Stack, now ready for polishing ...

Congratulations! You now have a final “clean stack” that has everything in focus and is ready for your polishing efforts (applying tone curves, sharpening/color adjustments, etc.).  The Adobe CS5 “Stacking Script” is the simplest, cleanest, least problematic scripter I have personally experimented with, and so if you are convinced by my previous blog entries, then I hope you enjoy this little tutorial on how to use the Adobe CS5 Extended program for stacking your macro images. You can download a free trial and experiment with it here.

Thank you for reading!

Jack

In my last post, just 4 days ago, I compared the most popular software programs that “stack” images together … the Helicon-Focus Stacker (@ $300) and the Zerene Stacker (@ $300) … to the new “scripts” stacker found in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended (@ $1,000). My conclusion was that Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended proved to be, by far, the better, more consistent overall stacking program than these other programs.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, “stacking” photos is a phrase that is used to describe the combining of several different images (of the same subject) into one image of that subject. This can be a great asset in macrophotography, because it is almost impossible to get the entire subject “in focus” with just one shot using a macro lens, due to the very shallow depth-of-field inherent in macro lenses. To help work around this, innovative software has been created with the idea to allow the photographer to take multiple macro photos of the same subject … trying to get various portions of the subject “in-focus” … and then the photographer will combine all of these images together by “stacking” them into one image … and, essentially, it is the software’s job to do all of this “stacking and blending” into ONE image as clealy and seamlessly as possible.

In trying to decide whether I should get a “specialized” stacking program (and spend another $300 to do so), or if the software program I am using is just fine, I decided to download FREE SAMPLES of these other stacking programs and see how they worked in comparison to the one I already had. I also thought it would be helpful to others if I shared my results and rated these programs against each other. Well, in order to rate which software program is better than which, it is easy to see that whichever program “stacks” with the greatest accuracy, leaving the fewest “imperfections” for the photographer to edit-out afterwards, has to be considered “The Best” program … while whichever program “stacks” with the least accuracy, leaving the most “imperfections” for the photographer to have to work on and edit-out afterwards, can only be called “The Worst” program for this purpose. Pretty basic logic here

Well, after I made the post below this one, which covered the results I got after 1 difficult stack of a Tall Ironweed flower, my test results left the Helicon-Focus Stacker as “the worst” … the Adobe CS5 stacker as “the best” … and the Zerene Stacker was somewhere right smack in the middle. These results I shared left some people dismayed, some people in uproar, but most of the people were thoughtfully reflecting upon their own stacking software … and how much time they’re wasting in post-process editing and re-editing all the errors that their software program spits out for them. There was also question called upon the validity of just the “one” test sample I did, so I decided to run another, much more involved test, which brings us to this current post

In this test, I will be assessing 7 different ” flower stacks” … going from easiest to most difficult … to show the difference gradually (but unmistakably!) how the Adobe CS5 Extended program reliably and consistently beats the other 2 systems, right on down the line. The number of images to “stack” will go from 2 all the way up to 10, and the level & complexity of the images will go from basic shapes to extremely complex and overlapping lines and curves.

• As before, I will minimally process all the raw images in Lightroom 3;
• I will then export all of the images to be “stacked” into separate 16-bit .tiff photos, saved in the ProPhoto ColorSpace for maximum retained color potential (because this will create the deepest, most complicated files to handle, but which are critical for printing the best images in the real world, not just for “posting online”);
• All 3 programs will be stacking the exact same files;
• Once the “stack” is made, the files outputted from each program will be shrunk to 2000 x 1333 dimensions, converted to 8-bit .jpg form in the sRGB color space, with no further processing/sharpening/editing of any kind, other than to add my copyright logo and watermark;
• The colors/quality you see will be what the programs put out, and where you as the photographer would have to begin in order to provide any corrections to polish and finalize the image.

In order for this post to have any meaning for you at all, you must click on each of the 4 full-sized images, let them all download, and then carefully compare the focusing accuracy, the unwanted artifacts (blurred/duplicate “edges,” halos, etc.), the quality of the color rendition, and the smooth, rich nature of the bokeh … or the total destruction of the background bokeh. As mentioned, I will begin with the easiest, simplest images to render, gradually increasing the difficulty as we progress, ending finally with the toughest and most complex images to render–and then I will provide my own conclusions after each image. So, without any further ado, let us start with the simplest images (Note: the Zerene Stacker has 2 stacking modes, Dmap and Pmax, and I rendered stacks through Zerene using each of these 2 modes, comparing them against each other as well as against the other software products):

Pineland Hibiscus (2-image stack)

This is a mere 2-stack image of a very simple composition: easy lines, easy edges, somewhat easy background bokeh. The results? Virtually identical. All 3 programs had an easy time rendering this image, but you will notice that the Zerene Stacker (Dmap) already is showing some bokeh degrading in the upper right portion of the image, compared to the others, while the Zerene Stacker (Pmax) equalled the results of Adobe CS5: 

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Zerene Stack-Dmap | Zerene Stack-Pmax (each @ 2000 x 1333)

Remember, there was no additional post-processing done in any of these images, so if the images look a little dark, that is because I have not yet begun to clean any of these images up or to “finalize” them in any way. What you are looking at is essentially the unpolished results as to how each of these Image Stackers “spit-out” the results of their stacking efforts of combining 16-bit .tiff files into one image, and then converting this composite image from ProPhoto to sRGB so you can see the results on your monitor. This will be true of all the forthcoming images as well. Winner: Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker & Zerene Stacker (Pmax), Runners-Up: Helicon-Focus Stacker & Zerene Stacker (Dmap), Loser: NONE (neither of the programs produced a “terrible” image, so nobody came out a loser here). Now on to the next image:

Saltmarsh Mallow (10-image stack)

Even though this was a 10-image stack, it is still a relatively clean and easy image to align (although it has a much more color-intensive background bokeh to deal with than the previous image). Yet still, the other two specialists fumbled the ball here, while once again the Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker did its job:

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Zerene Stack-Dmap | Zerene Stack-Pmax (each @ 2000 x 1333)

While the Helicon-Focus program did a good job along the flower edges … it smeared the center of the flower … and while the Zerene Stacker (Dmap) did a good job with the center of the flower, it totally destroyed the edges. And both the Helicon-Focus and the Zerene Stacker (Dmap) programs totally destroyed the bokeh of this image. In running the Pmax version of Zerene, this result produced a vastly superior result to the other Zerene effort, clarity and bokeh-wise, yet it changed the color of the image drastically (and to me unpleasantly). Yet the Zerene Stacker (Pmax) produced a more uniform overall sharpness than did even the Adobe CS5 stack. Meanwhile, once again, the Adobe CS5 Extended stacker did virtually everything right, except a few elements of blurring the flower center that would be easy to correct in PP. Winner: Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker and Zerene Stacker (Pmax), Runner-Up: NONE, Loser(s): Helicon Focus Stacker and Zerene Stacker (Dmap) both came out losers, because both programs produced images that would not be worth anyone’s time to take the trouble to correct. Now on to the next image:

Scarlet Milkweed (6-image stack)

This next image was at about the same level as the previous image, but perhaps made more difficult with an even creamier bokeh and more intense oranges and ruby-reds to try to render accurately. Worse, this milkweed also carried with it many more “edges” for the stacking programs to try to align properly with no mistakes. So here is how this test turned out:

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Zerene Stack-Dmap | Zerene Stack-Pmax (each @ 2000 x 1333)

Once again, the Adobe CS5 Extended stacker far exceeded the competition, but I did notice some ever-so-slight slight bokeh degradation in a few spots. The Helicon-Focus stacker performed fairly well on the left (flower) side of the image, but degraded towards the center and right side of the image, particularly in its inept handling of the fading stem of the milkweed. Meanwhile, the Zerene Stacker (Dmap) struggled getting any of the edges right, it produced halo artifacts throughout, and then totally degraded the bokeh on the right side of the image. However, the Pmax version of Zerene produced a vastly superior result than by its other method, but here again there was some banding and bokeh degradation on the far right, as well as an overall “color loss” to the whole image.  Winner: Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker, Runner-Up: Zerene Stacker (Pmax), Loser(s): Helicon-Focus Stacker and Zerene Stacker (Dmap) both produced images with enough focusing defects, and with a garbled enough bokeh, that the “result” wouldn’t be worth the time in post-processing to try to salvage. Now on to the next image:

Pale Meadow Beauty (4-image stack)

Even though this was only a simple 4-image stack, with clean flower petals and stamens, the image of the Pale Meadow Beauty flower contained some very intense color shifts, as well as a rather cluttered background, which I thought would particularly challenge the software programs, and here are the results:

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Zerene Stack-Dmap | Zerene Stack-Pmax (each @ 2000 x 1333)

Once again, the Adobe CS5 Extended stacker produced an excellent result, but so too did both of the other competitors, and that was Helicon-Focus as well as the Zerene Stacker (Pmax). Meanwhile, the Zerene Stacker (Dmap) did an admirable job of rendering the actual flower itself … but stumbled a bit on rendering the background bokeh, though the results were still workable not terrible. Winner: Adobe CS5 Extended, Helicon-Focus Stacker & Zerene Stacker (Pmax), Runner-Up: Zerene Stacker (Dmap), Loser: NONE. All of these products produced either great or easily-workable results. Now on to the next image:

Joe-Pye Weed (10-image stack)

This time I stepped-up the pace a bit, by going with a 10-image stack, that contained both vivid and contrasty colors, multiple complicated edges to align, as well as a solid bokeh to render and try to keep smooth and creamy. Here are the results: 

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Zerene Stack-Dmap | Zerene Stack-Pmax (each @ 2000 x 1333)

All of the programs struggled a bit with this one, and even the Adobe CS5 Extended stacker produced a few halos, a blurred pair of insect antennae, but overall Adobe once again prevailed. The Helicon-Focus Stacker produced a lot of halos, but they were clean and relatively easy to edit, and it also did a pretty fair job of rendering the bokeh. Meanwhile, the Zerene Stacker (Dmap and Pmax) left the worst overall results, spitting out a ton of halos and an utterly-destroyed bokeh (Dmap), and producing halos and ruining the color quality (Pmax). Winner: Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker, Runner-Up: Helicon-Focus Stacker, Loser: Zerene Stacker (Dmap & Pmax). Now on to the next image:

Ironweed (5-image stack)

This was the same test I posted in my last entry 4 days ago, which was a 5-image stack of a very complicated Ironweed Flower, for which I have already posted the results in yesterday’s blog, but I have again re-entered this result here today because I incorporated a second Zerene Stack test to this model (in Pmax mode), as well as because the level of difficulty of this challenge was so great. Here are those results:

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Zerene Stack-Dmap | Zerene Stack-Pmax (each @ 2000 x 1333)

As mentioned in the last report, the Adobe CS5 Extended stacker did everything better than the competition here, from edge accuracy to color rendition to its rendering a smooth and creamy bokeh very well. It wasn’t perfect, but it was much closer than the other two. Meanwhile, the Zerene Stacker (both Dmap and Pmax) produced very close results to the Adobe rendering, but still left more halos around the edges to have to edit-out, while the Helicon-Focus result was totally unsalvageable. Winner: Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker, Runner-Up: Zerene Stacker (both Dmap and Pmax results were virtually indistinguishable), Loser: Helicon-Focus Stacker. Each of the Zerene stacks, while not quite as refined when compared to the Adobe stack, were both nonetheless workable … but I would not have bothered to try to salvage the Helicon-Focus stack and would have thrown it in the Recycle Bin. Now on to the final image:

Another Ironweed Species (7-image stack)

This final photo was the most complex of all, with an entire field of nothing but flowers, colors, sticks, and shapes for these programs to try to render accurately. In this very tough case, all of the programs struggled and produced multiple flaws, but only the Adobe CS5 Stacker produced results that would have been worth bothering to clean-up:

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)
* Zerene Stack-Dmap | Zerene Stack-Pmax (each @ 2000 x 1333)

This photo really isn’t a very good image, as there is too much clutter in the background to be considered an “artistic” macro shot, and yet it served its purpose by showing the potential defects in all of the stacking programs. Still, if a person wanted to salvage this image, the Adobe stacker produced the overall best result, with the Zerene Stacker (Pmax) doing enough things well that you could have been able to salvage this image also, if you cared to do enough post-processing. All programs blew several areas where they clearly got “confused” in regard to focus, but overall the CS5 stack retained the better edge accuracy and color rendition (although the Pmax rendering of Zerene was close in some areas, and actually surpassed the clarity of Adobe in others). Meanwhile, the other two programs [Helicon-Focus and Zerene (Dmap)] both completely crashed and burned in the bokeh department. Winner: Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker, Runner-Up: Zerene Stacker (Pmax), Loser: Helicon-Focus Stacker & Zerene Stacker (Dmap). Once again, the Adobe image could be salvaged by hand (albeit with considerable effort) … and so too could the Pmax version of the Zerene Stacker (with even more effort) … while the only option for the two images produced by Helicon-Focus and Zerene (Dmap) would be to flush them down the Recycle Bin.

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Overall Results:

* Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker: First Place (First Place 7x out of 7)
* Zerene Stacker (Pmax): Second Place (Tied for First Place 3x, Second Place 3x, Loser 1x)
* Helicon-Focus Stacker: Third Place (Tied for First Place 1x, Second Place 2x, Loser 4x)
* Zerene Stacker (Dmap): Last Place (First Place 0x, Second Place 3x, Loser 4x)

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Some Final Thoughts:

After running this these extensive and time-consuming tests on 7 multi-image stacks in a row, from easy to very difficult, I would have to say the Helicon Stacker lagged behind overall than the Zerene Stacker (Pmax), while the Zerene Stacker (Dmap) consistently produced the worst results of all.  For those who don’t want to bother dealing with mediocrity, and who only want the best, the Adobe CS5 Extended Stacker reigned supreme in every single test that I ran, in the end my opinion remains absolutely unchanged that neither of these other products could consistently perform at the level of the Adobe CS5 Stacker (though Zerene Pmax did get close, and equal, the Adobe result a few times; it just wasn’t consistent enough to suit me).

Now then, I would like to mention that I have heard people state that the Adobe program “takes too long” to process multiple stacks, but I really didn’t notice a significant difference between any of the programs at all. Naturally how “long” any program is going to take depends on the computer system’s resources as much as anything else. On my end, I have a fairly decent (but by no means super) system which is as follows: AMD Phenom II 3.00 gHz processor, 8 gig RAM, Windows 7 (64-bit), and an ATI Radeon 5450 Graphics Card. Not too shabby, but nothing to write home about either. My computer is, however, within the realm of “modern-day performance specs,” and is not an outdated machine. Therefore, as far as any claims about the Adobe Photoshop CS5 stacker being “slow” is concerned, 3 things come to mind:

1. Those people do not have the system resources to process multiple images at once properly, so what they call “slow” is really their own system’s inadequacy to handle the job;
2. Because Adobe is actually retaining all of the color detail better, this is going to take a whole lot more time to process than a program that is “dropping” the color tones and detail. In fact, I would say that if anyone is processing 10-30 images, and his computer does not slow down a bit, then he either has one helluva fast system, or his images are not being processed properly and with ALL of the detail/colors being processed with true precision and accuracy;
3. I guess it all depends on what a person’s definition of “slow” is. The Zerene stacker took about 10-15 seconds to process my 5 detailed images … sometimes longer though! … and it would have taken me about 4 hours to cut every single artifact out of that image, to clean up the blurs, plus adjust the colors, etc., in many of the “results.” Meanwhile, the Adobe program took maybe 2 minutes to process, and I might have had 2-5 more minutes of processing to do in most of the images.

Of all the products, Helicon-Focus Stacker spit-out a “result” the fastest overall, but not by much. (I also think Helicon Focus had a far nicer interface to work with than the Zerene Stacker.) Meanwhile, the Zerene Stacker seemed to work fast on an image or two … but then it would “freeze” my computer after that, to where it needed to be re-started. In the end, neither product spit-out a “result” so much faster than the Adobe CS5 Extended stacker to justify their poor performance when compared to it. Remember this: “how long” a program takes to process an image doesn’t stop after you click on their respective ”process” buttons … it also encompasses the amount of time it takes “you” to correct all of the errors until you have an acceptable image. And the simple fact is, neither of these other “specialized” programs could process all of the details as precisely as the Adobe CS5 Stacker was able to do repeatedly and consistently in every instance, not just one or two. So, really, if these other programs repeatedly force a person to have to spend a couple of hours doctoring their “results” (even on medium-hard images) … where the Adobe CS5 stacker repeatedly gets it right every time … can anyone honestly say he is “saving time” with these other products? I sure don’t think so! Honestly, I would have thrown most of the results from these other programs in the Recycle Bin rather than even bother to try to correct their flaws.

And the final point of interest I would like to share is that, not only did the Adobe product produce a better result every time, but the Adobe stacker’s produced images (though of better quality) also were rendered as smaller files every time. Consistently producing smaller files will ultimately save you hard drive space every time you stack an image, rather than waste your hard drive space every time you stack an image. Therefore, to me, having to wait a couple of minutes longer for the Adobe program to process my stacks is a small price to pay for saving me a nightmare’s worth of “corrections” to have to do after it’s finished … and I would rather conserve my hard drive space by saving superior images in smaller sizes … than waste my hard drive space saving inferior images in bigger sizes. So, here again, all the time and resources that it takes to process your stacked images needs to be taken into account, not just how long it takes after you click the button, and the Adobe CS5 Stacker leads the way in every single category.

With all of these provisions in place, it has been my repeated and consistent findings that Adobe CS5 Extended once again proved to be the better software “stacking” program … and, really, by a country mile. Therefore, if the age-old adage “Time is Money” is correct, then the extra $$ that the Adobe CS5 Extended program may “cost you” in the beginning to get … will quickly pay for itself by saving you a nightmare’s-worth of post-processing time in the end.

Jack

PS: If anyone doubts my test results, please be my guest and download full copies of each of these programs and compare the results of processing your own macro files for yourself

Focus Stacking is an interesting way to produce great macro shots. Because of the shallow depth-of-field that macro lenses produce, many 1-shot macro images leave only a part of the subject in focus, with the rest of the subject progressively going out-of-focus. Some people appreciate this limited-focus effect, while others do not. Well, innovative photographers who wanted to see more of their images “in focus,” have come up with the idea of focus stacking their images, which means taking several shots of the exact same subject, with different areas of that subject “in focus,” and then stacking those images on top of each other, rendering and blending them in such a way that ALL areas of the subject can ultimately be seen in-focus. This is what has now become popularly known as “focus stacking.”

I myself have just started to get into focus stacking my images, as I prepare my own book on Florida Jumping spiders, as I really want to produce the best images possible for this effort. However, because there are many products that all purportedly “stack” images well, I was in a bit of a quandary as to “which stacking progam” was better than which. So I asked this question on a number of public forums, and it seemed nobody could give me a decisive answer as to which stacker was best. Not being the type to wait around for an answer long, I decided the age-old adage applied: “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” and so I conducted my own tests and thereby answered my own question

The most popular software programs have been the Helicon-Focus Stacker (~$300) and the Zerene Stacker (~$300), but Adobe recently came out with its own stacker already built into the “scripts” of its Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended (~$1,000). Photoshop Extended is, by far, the better overall program than these other, limited, programs … but I wasn’t quite sure as a general program Adobe would have as good a stacker as these other two popular stacking specialists. Well folks, my tests showed that Adobe likewise has by far the better stacker as well.

My Test:
When combining multiple images into one image, the easiest images to “focus stack” are those images with straight lines and simple colors … while the toughest images for any program to align correctly are those with curves and “ends” which can mis-align due to slight camera movement, etc. Therefore, to really challenge these stacking programs, I took 5 images of a Tall Ironweed Flower, which has lots of delicate “ends” that I knew would be very difficult to control for any stacker. I minimally processed all 5 raw images in Lightroom 3 and then I exported all 5 images into 5 separate 16-bit .tiff photos, saved in the ProPhoto ColorSpace for maximum retained color potential (I also knew this would create the deepest, most complicated files, which would be critical for printing the best images in the real world, not just for “posting online”). Anyway, I then simply “stacked” these exact same .tiff files using the Photoshop CS5 Stacker, the Helicon-Focus Stacker, and the Zerene Stacker respectively … and these are the results that obtained with no further processing/editing (aside from reducing to the exact same size each):

Carefully compare The Full Images yourself by clicking the links below:

* Adobe CS5 Stack (2000 x 1333)

* Helicon-Focus Stack (2000 x 1333)

* Zerene Stack (2000 x 1333)
 

THE RESULTS (worst-to-best): If you really take the time to study all of these images, from left-to-right and from top-to-bottom, it is very clear that the Helicon-Focus stack came out the worst of the bunch, destroying the bokeh as well as leaving dozens of artifacts for me to correct (though it retained the color a bit better than the Zerene). The Zerene stack was middle of the road, reducing the original color quality (and it “darkened” the image a bit), and the Zerene likewise left dozens of blurred artifacts for me to have to “correct” (though it preserved the bokeh much better than did the Helicon). And, finally, the Adobe CS5 stack came out the best of the bunch, defeating both products on every conceivable level, by 1) aligning more of all the images correctly for better overall focus, 2) retaining far better color across the image, 2) retaining far better bokeh in the background aspect, and 3) totally eclipsing the “stacking accuracy” of the other two products, leaving me with virtually ZERO artifacts to correct.

Therefore, you can best believe that I will now be UNinstalling both the Zerene Stacker and the Helicon Stacker from my hard drive, and sticking with my Adobe CS5 stacker for my all of my future stacking efforts. (Who would have thought that the masters of digital imagery would produce the best image stacker too? )

I hope this article helps save someone some money, time, and effort!

Jack

Pardon the suggestive innuendo of the title here, folks, but I knew it would get your attention

I recently made a blog post on how having a longer macro lens (and the corresponding longer distance between your lens and the subject) gives you a better bokeh. A “bokeh” is the out-of-focus background (and sometimes foreground) that can be critical to many macro shots. Because having a pleasing bokeh is so important to macro-photography, I had mentioned in a previous blog that my having upgraded to a 180mm macro lens has dramatically-improved the bokeh of all my shots, and I advised my readers that I felt this has thereby improved my photography. One photographer conducted an experiment, apparently to see if what I said was true, by taking some shots on his own … of the same flower … with 3 different-sized lenses. Based on his own field test, he found that his 180mm macro lens in fact did render the bokeh better than his 60mm lens. However, he said he didn’t want to get into the “technical stuff,” so I thought I would follow-up here and do so (as, really, it is not all that technical )

The reason there really is an improvement of bokeh (background blur) when you use longer macro lenses versus shorter lenses is founded upon some pretty basic physical principles: longer focal lengths allow you to step back further from the subject to acquire the same subject framing. In plain English, this means you have to “get closer” to the flower with a 60mm macro lens than you do with a 180mm lens. Being closer to the flower with a 60mm lens, to get the same framing of the subject, means there is *more background* behind the subject for that 60mm lens to render into a bokeh (background blur) than there would be if he were able to step back a few feet to get the same shot by using a 180mm lens. Let me illustrate:

I will be photographing this flower to demonstrate.

To show what I mean (which is sometimes easier than following mere words), I am going to take some basic shots of a Spanish Needle Flower with my 24-70mm lens (@70mm) as well as with my 180mm macro lens (both are Canon L lenses that are around the same price at $1400-$1500), so they are equal-quality lenses. [Please understand I am not trying to take "great photos" here, I am simply trying to illustrate a point.] Well, the point is, even though both lenses are excellent lenses, and cost about the same amount to own, I simply have to get closer to the flower with the 24-70mm than I do with the 180mm macro. Take a look:

This is how close I had to get to the flower with my 24-70 to get the shot (8-inches away).

By contrast, I backed the tripod 3x as far away to get the same shot with the 180mm (24-inches away).

Where I had to get as close as 8-inches away to get the same-framed shot with my 24-70mm lens, by contrast I could back-off to 24-inches away (3x as far) with the 180mm lens. This means the smaller lens had to take-in and render more background than did the 180mm lens. An easy way to picture this is imagine you’re standing behind a fence that has a peep-hole the size of a silver dollar. (That “peep-hole” represents the framing of your shot.) Well, if you put your eye right up to the peep-hole, you can look through it and see the whole grassy field on the other side of the fence. However, if you step back a few feet from the peep-hole, and try to see what’s on the other side of the fence, then you can’t see much of the grassy field behind the fence at all.

Okay, now take this easy illustration back to the lenses, and it is quite simple to understand that when a little-bitty lens (like a 70mm) forces you get real close to the subject to frame it, then A LOT of the background has to be rendered by this little lens, hence the worse bokeh. By contrast, when a that same-framed shot is able to be taken with a longer macro lens, like a 180 mm, the fact that the bigger lens allows you to frame it from a couple feet away means that *less* of the background is taken in, thereby making 1) less background to have to render out of focus, which 2) also makes it easier to find the most desireable “part” of the background to frame. So let’s take a look at the images:

Bokeh rendered by 70mm lens.

Bokeh rendered by 180mm lens.

Again, there is nothing special about these images, and I didn’t bother to process them much at all. The point was to show that, while both lenses are nice, the longer 180mm lens just created a smoother, more uniform bokeh because it hardly had any background to render because of its distance from the flower … while the shorter lens rendered a more convoluted bokeh, simply because it had “more background” to try to render out of focus, by its very proximity to the flower. In other words, the point of all this is that size really does matter, folks :)

Hope this fun little demo helps illustrate a key point in macro photography!

Cheers!

Jack

Many of you have heard of (and probably already use) Adobe Lightroom  … but I just wanted to say that this most current iteration of Lightroom (Adobe Lightroom 3.4) is the best yet. I already have the Adobe CS5 Master Collection set, which isn’t cheap, and it already comes with Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended. So why do I like Lightroom so much?

First of all, where “old film” photography used a Darkroom … new age digital photography is all about the “Lightroom,” so just the name of the product is cool   But a cool name will only take a person so far, and only legitimate substance is going to make a person shell-out $300 for the program. So why buy Adobe Lightroom 3.4? Even though Lightroom essentially is a Raw developing program (and even though it uses essentially the same engine as the Adobe Camera Raw I already have in my Photoshop program), the interface of Lightroom is simply better and more intuitive, thereby making it more of a pleasure to work with. Also, the new sharpening kit + their noise removal are simply spectacular, as are the enormously powerful Spot Removal, Graduated Filter, Dodge and other tools that simply have to be used to be appreciated. These, in-and-of-themselves, are good enough reasons to want to spend your time working on your Raw files with Adobe Lightroom 3.4 over Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop.

But over and above the tremendous usefullness of these tools is the whole Adobe Lightroom concept! What do I mean by “concept?” I mean this: where other software programs actually change your raw files themselves as you adjust your core images, Adobe Lightroom does NOT! Rather, Adobe Lightroom creates its own, separate “adjustment files” that are in relationship to your orignal image, without actually modifying the original capture at all. The value in this is obvious! If you’re actually modifying your original image with another program, and blow it, you can ruin the original! But if you’re working with Lightroom, you aren’t touching the actual image, you’re only appearing to … but you’re actually creating sub-files that interpret the original Raw data, but leave it untouched. Therefore, when you “export” to .tiff for further Photoshop work, all of your revisions get recorded on the newly-created .tiff file … but the original, Raw file remains 100% intact, which I think is great!

But it gets better, as Lightroom has also has tons of keyword (and other file management) tools that it actually act as a premier file management system as well. For example, if you take photos of (say) lizards, all you do is add a few Tags to the metadata (e.g., “Reptiles,” “Lizards,” “Southern Fence Lizard”)—and instantly Lightroom files this image away in 3 different places. If you get in the habit of doing this for each of your images, over time you have an extraordinarily powerful tool to reference! For example, if 2 years later you need a good lizard image, you can just punch in “Lizard,” and all of your lizard images will be displayed, including that one, to select from. However, if it is the specific species “Southern Fence Lizard,” all you do is punch that name in and instantly all of your Southern Fence Lizard images are immediately displayed to select from, including that one. This kind of speedy reference sure beats trying to remember “what date” you took that one particular picture on, 2 years previous, with a filing system that goes by date!

All-in-all, Adobe Lightroom 3.4 is a key investment if you are serious not just about editing your Raw files optimally for display, but doing so in such a way as you do not disturb the original raw files … and, on top of this, which allows you to store all of your images in the most thoughtful and easily-accessed fashion, over time.

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