PhotoPlus The Canon Magazine – August 2019

The Canon Magazine 65

focus stacking

affinity photo

vieW T he video

video Also online

http://bit.ly/pp_155_7

AFF iniTy Focus sTA cking TiP s

Get impressive back to front focus using Affinity Photo’s focus merge

01 Select your image Set

To Focus Merge, just open Affinity then go to

File>New Focus Merge. Click Add in the dialog box

and navigate to your set of focus-stacked photos.

Cmd/Ctrl-click on the files you want to select, then hit

Open to bring them into the New Merge.

03 check for iSS ueS

Once the merge is complete you’ll see the Sources

panel appear. You can use this to fix any blurry areas

if the merge has been unsuccessful. Zoom in close to

check for problems. In this case some of the details in

the plant aren’t as sharp as they could be.

05 clone the edgeS

Pick the photo in the Sources panel that contains the

sharper area, then click the Source Preview icon again

to return to the merged view. Grab the Clone tool and

set Opacity to 100 and paint over the blurry area to fix

it by cloning from other shots in the Sources panel.

02 Start the merge

Once you’ve chosen your images, hit Merge – this’ll

take a while. First the images are aligned to correct for

changes in subject size between each shift. Next a

depth map is created to find the sharp parts in each

frame, The sharp parts are merged together into one.

04 find SharPer detailS

Click the Source Preview icon at the bottom left of the

Sources panel to toggle it on. The view changes to

allow you to click on each image that makes up the

merge. Click through to determine if a sharper area

exists than the one on the merged image.

06 SharPen the detailS

Go to the Layers panel (View>Studio>Layers), then

hit Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate the bottom layer. Go to

Filter>Sharpen>High Pass. Set the Radius to about

2.5px, then go to the Layers panel and set the blend

mode to Overlay. Make other changes to finish off.

nexT monTh

uSing affiniTy

bruSheS

In general, an object

with smooth curved

edges like this results

in a better merges

than one with lots of

sharp-edged or

furry details

Quick TiP!