# Focus peaking



## Joe23 (Jan 14, 2019)

Does anyone know of a plugin (Mac compatible) that enables Focus Peaking within Lightroom? Focus peaking is where the areas that are in focus are highlighted in a transparent overlay colour like red or green. It's a common feature on some mirrorless cameras, especially to help focussing manual lenses. It is even more useful in a RAW editor because you can see at a glance which photos in a folder are in focus, instead of having to zoom into each photo one at a time to check focus.

Capture One has a feature called Focus Mask. After 12 months' consistent usage, I'm getting a little frustrated with the Capture One workflow and am contemplating a return to Lightroom. But the Focus Mask feature is a big time saver for the fashion and portrait work I do. I'd be happy to use Capture One just for tethering my Sony cameras (since Sony tethering is another feature missing from Lightroom) and do my RAW editing in Lightroom.


----------



## clee01l (Jan 15, 2019)

There is at least one plugin that works with LR Show Focus Points Plugin for Lightroom   I'm not sure which Sony cameras are supported, but most Nikon and Canon cameras are.


----------



## Joe23 (Jan 15, 2019)

Thanks clee01l. Yes I've seen that plugin. Only supports Sony A77ii (no Sony A7 series pro cameras) as a beta version and hasn't been updated since January 2017, so maybe no longer being updated.


----------



## Gavin Lipscombe (Jan 15, 2019)

clee01l said:


> There is at least one plugin that works with LR Show Focus Points Plugin for Lightroom I'm not sure which Sony cameras are supported, but most Nikon and Canon cameras are.




That plugin shows the focus points the camera recorded.  It does not "see" that the image is in focus.

Focus Peaking is totally different.  It analyses the image to find edges of highest  contrast and shows these areas as they are likely to be in focus.

I haven't found a plugin for lightroom that will do this

There are some actions for Photoshop that use High Pass Filter as a starting point.

FastRawViewer is a seperate application, available for mac and windows, that has this feature.  It has a free trial period it you want to evaluate it.  I tried it and found it didn't fit in well with my workflow.  I found it most useful for fine tuning my Tamron 150 - 600.


----------



## Joe23 (Jan 16, 2019)

I have had a trial version of FastRawViewer but I didn't know it had focus peaking. Thanks for the info.


----------



## PhilBurton (Jan 18, 2019)

Joe23 said:


> I have had a trial version of FastRawViewer but I didn't know it had focus peaking. Thanks for the info.


So how do you do your photos to take advantage of this feature?

Phil Burton


----------



## Hal P Anderson (Jan 18, 2019)

Phil,
Go back and read Gavin's post. You don't need to do your photos any particular way for the software to make a guess at what's in focus.


----------



## PhilBurton (Jan 18, 2019)

PhilBurton said:


> So how do you do your photos to take advantage of this feature?
> 
> Phil Burton


Hal,

My impression is that focus peaking is the endpoint of a process where a stack of photos is analysed to find the parts in focus.  Sort of like HDR in a way.  I once remember reading about some specialized hardware that would move the focus point of a lens in and out by carefully controlled increments.  The intended application was closeups, where depth of field is very small.  At the time, I remember thinking, "Gee, that's clever, but I can't reallu use that hardware, and by the way, it wasn't inexpensive."

So my question is directly at doing  'general photography' at non-infinity lens settings, especially with telephoto lenses.

Phil Burton


----------



## Hal P Anderson (Jan 18, 2019)

Your impression is wrong. It's strictly based on an analysis of the image to figure out what's likely in focus. It's pretty quick: my Olympus mirrorless cameras have an option to focus peak while in manual focus mode. The edges of objects in focus light up in real time as you move the focus ring.

It has nothing to do with focus stacking.


----------



## PhilBurton (Jan 19, 2019)

Hal P Anderson said:


> Your impression is wrong. It's strictly based on an analysis of the image to figure out what's likely in focus. It's pretty quick: my Olympus mirrorless cameras have an option to focus peak while in manual focus mode. The edges of objects in focus light up in real time as you move the focus ring.
> 
> It has nothing to do with focus stacking.


Hal,

Thanks for the explanation.

Phil Burton


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Jan 19, 2019)

PhilBurton said:


> My impression is that focus peaking is the endpoint of a process where a stack of photos is analysed to find the parts in focus.  Sort of like HDR in a way.  I once remember reading about some specialized hardware that would move the focus point of a lens in and out by carefully controlled increments.  The intended application was closeups, where depth of field is very small.  At the time, I remember thinking, "Gee, that's clever, but I can't reallu use that hardware, and by the way, it wasn't inexpensive."


What you are describing here is not called 'focus peaking' but 'focus stacking'. You can do that in Photoshop and there is also dedicated software for it, like Helicon Focus.


----------

