Focus stacking is a fantastic technique for landscape photography because it provides perfect sharpness throughout the scene you’re shooting. In fact, the results are so sharp the resulting images can look hyperreal. So, here’s how to focus stack images in Affinity Photo.
A large depth-of-field is an essential ingredient in the vast majority of landscape images, but it’s not always possible to achieve sharpness throughout a scene with a single image.
Despite shooting with a narrow aperture such as f/11 or f/16 if there are elements of the scene close to the camera and further interest at the back of the scene close to the horizon, it’s often impossible to get everything pin-sharp. The background may be ‘acceptably sharp’ but not as sharp as the point of focus and the surrounding area.
The best was to ensure optimum sharpness is to focus stack your images and blend them together in Affinity Photo. The advantage here is that you can shoot at the ‘sweet spot’ of your lens.
This is the aperture that produces the sharpest results, although not the largest depth-of-field, and is typically either f/8 or f/11. Then by merging these images together, you’re both creating pin-sharpness throughout the image and also obtaining the sharpest results possible with your lens.
To learn more about shooting focus stacked images click here
How to focus stack images in Affinity Photo
Sharpness throughout the landscape
This is the after image, which exhibits perfect sharpness from the front of the shot, all the way to the back. The following two images show cropped sections of the image at the front and back to show this.
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