# Focus stacking



## sato123 (Jul 19, 2016)

Any plug-ins available for focus/exposure staking . Have LR 6


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## clee01l (Jul 19, 2016)

Welcome to the forum.
The Merge to HDR  function will handle your "exposure stacking". 
There are two external editors that do a remarkable job at focus stacking.  Both have plugins that facilitate getting the images from LR to the External editor. 
HeliconFocus has an Export plugin that creates intermediate TIFFs which are passed to the app.  The merged output file from the app has to be imported back into LR using the folder sync.
My preference is Zerene Stacker.  As it is cleaner and can be automated to write its merged output file to a Watched folder where LR can automatically import the file.  It creates temporary intermediate files in working storage which are deleted automatically when the app is closed.  Zener Stacker also has better tools for cleaning up the final image.  You can script the whole process in Zerene stacker except for the image clean up  step.


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## sato123 (Jul 19, 2016)

clee01l said:


> Welcome to the forum.
> The Merge to HDR  function will handle your "exposure stacking".
> There are two external editors that do a remarkable job at focus stacking.  Both have plugins that facilitate getting the images from LR to the External editor.
> HeliconFocus has an Export plugin that creates intermediate TIFFs which are passed to the app.  The merged output file from the app has to be imported back into LR using the folder sync.
> My preference is Zerene Stacker.  As it is cleaner and can be automated to write its merged output file to a Watched folder where LR can automatically import the file.  It creates temporary intermediate files in working storage which are deleted automatically when the app is closed.  Zener Stacker also has better tools for cleaning up the final image.  You can script the whole process in Zerene stacker except for the image clean up  step.


Thank you for the information I will check Zerene !!!!!!!


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## Cerianthus (Jul 19, 2016)

LR / enfuse can do photo stacking as well. I think the license for Zerene is quite steep if you ever want to sell an image.....


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 19, 2016)

Helicon Focus can now stack raw files into a DNG, the same way that Lightroom makes panorama DNG. So effectively, your stacked image is still 'raw'.


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## davidedric (Jul 19, 2016)

I don't do a lot of this, but I did trial both Zerene and Helicon.

I ended up with Helicon, partly because I liked that you can buy a one year licence very reasonably, which I am viewing as a sort of extended trial.

Dave


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## clee01l (Jul 19, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> Helicon Focus can now stack raw files into a DNG, the same way that Lightroom makes panorama DNG. So effectively, your stacked image is still 'raw'.


A DNG file is not always RAW.  Of necessity the data will be RGB (pixels) In reality, this DNG is no different from a TIFF (the format specification which DNG is based).  The DNG simply describes the wrapper around the data block.  Information contained in the DNG header indicates whether the data block is RBG or RAW.


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## clee01l (Jul 19, 2016)

davidedric said:


> I don't do a lot of this, but I did trial both Zerene and Helicon.
> 
> I ended up with Helicon, partly because I liked that you can buy a one year licence very reasonably, which I am viewing as a sort of extended trial.
> 
> Dave


I bought a license to Zerene Stacker several years ago.  All updates have been free.  I've also exchanged email with the author.  He is very easy to work with.


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## rob211 (Jul 19, 2016)

Here's Helicon's more detailed explanation of the DNG workflow: Raw-in-DNG-out mode - Helicon Soft

I suppose it boils down to whether you wanna do stuff like WB first, or after the stacking. And of course you still have the original. DxO also sends a DNG back to Lr and you can still do lots of adjustments as if you were working from the original as well (but not all of course, since after all you were using DxO for something).

BTW Affinity Photos is saying they are gonna have focus stacking in the not-released v 1.5.


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