Focus Stacking Not Working

[Bill Alpert]

I'm hoping to move my workflow from Photoshop to Affinity, though one frequently needed feature isn't working for me: focus stacking. I watched the "official" tutorial video to be sure I'm using the feature correctly. 

I'm using a set of 3 raw files from my Olympus camera, all at differing focus points. The blend function in Photoshop produces a beautiful and sharp image throughout. The same raw files produce a soft mess in Affinity. I've had the same result with several different images. The odd thing is that even the individual imported layers look softer than their original counterpart from the camera, though I admit the little preview button seems to be slow to respond. 
I did see a bug report about open CL graphics, though I don't think that applies to me. I toggled the function in preferences, just to check and it made no difference.

Here's my system info; any help appreciated. Thank you! ~Bill A.

Model Name: iMac

  Model Identifier: iMac18,3

  Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i5

  Processor Speed: 3.8 GHz

  Number of Processors: 1

  Total Number of Cores: 4

  L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

  L3 Cache: 6 MB

  Memory: 24 GB

  System Firmware Version: 429.100.7.0.0

  SMC Version (system): 2.41f2

  Serial Number (system): D25X41ULJ1GQ

  Hardware UUID: E1F22018-FE77-50DD-AED6-9F23CE7A6919

  Provisioning UDID: E1F22018-FE77-50DD-AED6-9F23CE7A6919

[John Rostron]

Hello @Bill Alpert, and welcome to the forums.

Your problem might lie in that Photoshop possibnly applies a cetain amount of sharpening by default before focus merging. Affinity does not apply any such sharpening. What happens if you sharpen your final focus-merged image?

Although it is faster to use the raw files for focus merging in Affinity Photo, you will consistently get better results if you develop your raw files first and save them before merging the developed files.

If you need further help, please post your original raw files for us to look at.

John

 

[John Rostron]

See this thread as well for help on combining Raw development with merging.

John

[Bill Alpert]

Hi John, 

The images were carefully hand focussed at three separate depth points, and look razor sharp in Mac Preview, Lightroom or Photoshop before any processing that I'm aware of. I doubt that any amount of "pre sharpening" could have made the change that I am seeing. 

I've attached a 3 file stack which worked well in Photoshop. 

As a side note, I've noticed the very same problem when trying to use Helicon to produce the stack: the ORF files already seem a lot softer upon their initial import and before any stacking operations have been completed. 

Wondering if there's some kind of bug related to ORF. Thanks for your help! ~Bill A.

WoodsWorld20210430_1216260009.ORF WoodsWorld20210430_1218470010.ORF WoodsWorld20210430_1218570011.ORF

[James Ritson]

@Bill Alpert I stacked your three ORF files using Photo and they merged successfully, producing the result I would expect—therefore I suspect your main issue is with the softness? That's just part of how Photo develops raw files, as it doesn't add any additional sharpening post-demosaicing. This produces softer results compared to other raw developers, but it's not symptomatic of any deficiency—the amount of sharpening is left up to the user.

I do prefer this, especially with images where you don't want background detail sharpened as it brings out additional noise (especially with blue sky detail). If you wanted sharp source images, you could always run them through the Olympus Workspace app which will apply the level of sharpening that is set in-camera (among all the other various adjustments).

Just to show that it shouldn't pose any serious issues, I've done an edit of your three images below with some sharpening and retouching applied—have you tried the focus bracketing feature yet? It's really useful, and works especially well for handheld photography, which Photo will align and focus merge—I shot some close-ups of dragonflies using the 300mm f4 a couple of years ago and used focus bracketing to capture front-to-back sharpness, it worked quite well. It might be worth experimenting with as I notice that the set could have used a fourth exposure for the very back of the bowl, it's not quite tack sharp.

[Bill Alpert]

@James Ritson Thank you for the explanation. Clearly, the workflow in APhoto would differ from Photoshop. I've attached a jpeg that is essentially unedited beyond whatever default processing performed during a Photoshop alignment and blend. Certainly, evaluating the results is a matter of personal preference but if you open the two jpegs side by side I'd make the argument that the Photoshop version is a bit more nuanced and natural looking.

[John Rostron]

I ran Affinity on your three raw files and, like @James Ritson, it looked fine to me. I could not really compare it with your posted image because it was not saved at 100%.

John

[Bill Alpert]

Not sure why we didn't get a full size image; trying again, thanks!