MACRO PP 1: How I Increase my MACRO picture DOF (Stack Focus)

I am sharing this as this is how I do to get my macro picture get better DOF... hope you all will enjoy this....

To have picture stack, we should
1. get major part of interest of the object focus pictures, how I get this
i. accurate focus skill, practice more until you can focus any part of the object. e.g. just focus the bug eye, nose, ears .....
ii. faster flash speed
- sometime I will recommend to use manual flash to get faster recycle time e.g. 1/8-1/4 so I can shoot multiple picture continuously without too worry my flash
iii. shoot with standard angle, e.g. side view, face direct ...so even the bug move, we still can chase the bug to shoot the same angle to stack (some time I even shoot different bug but same angle to stack). But for sure, we need similar magnification to have success stack

2. PP software to do this
i. CS3 masking method (which I will discuss here)
ii. combineZM, which I feel it is quick easy to use but I have yet start to use it

3. PP Process
i. open multiple picture and make sure it have similar exposure and white balance e.g.




ii. use the one with best composition as base and duplicate other pictures on the main picture

iii. duplicate other picture on to the main picture as select from ii



iv. choose the opacity on right hand side to ~75%


v. move the transparent picture to match the main picture, if the angle not correct. You may use transform > rotate to match it back

vi. after match it, please hide the picture as below


vii. use the brush tool to erase the part you wish to have from the picture as show below




viii. continue with other pictures and repeat iii-vii

happy trying :D ... feel free to ping me if you feel my instructions are not clear enough and I will try my best to update more details more :D

or you can email me liewwk76@gmail.com

liewwk