Help please, dealing with artifacts

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Tonyv138

New Member
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Nov 27, 2021
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I am trying to learn macro and stacking technique. Loaded bot trials helcon and zerene. experimented with the output for number of hours, and no matter what i get the "halo" on the back side of the stacked result. I can not figure out my way to deal with it. It appears to me that the problem exists because there is a significant jump in focus from acorn edge to background and subject and software does not know how to deal with it. Please recommend a solution. Thanks Acorn.jpg
 

Tina Boes

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Jul 25, 2021
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I need an answer for that too. Hopefully we will get some tips on this.
In the meantime, if you have Lightroom or PS, maybe take down the highlights a bit so the center of the acorn is not so bright. It should bring in some detail in that area and in some areas of the cap.
That is a beautiful acorn.
 

Calopteryx

New Member
Nov 25, 2021
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I've been regularly using stacking for a few years now, and also often encounter this problem. As you said, the issue is the large distance between the focal plains. When the background is in focus, the acorn is blurred and expands further than when it is in focus, covering part of the background. So there's a 'dead' area with no relevant information for either. It becomes increasingly worse with higher magnification and wider aperture.

I use Helicon for stacking, and in cases like this I use the Retouching tool to manually brush in these areas. This does not completely solve the problem, but improves the result. If the 'halo' is still very noticable I use the spot removal tool in Lightroom to replace the blurred parts with a suitable part of the image, usually close by. If this isn't possible I just try to adjust the clarity/contrast in that area to make it less noticable and better match the rest of the image.

I've attached two 150% crops of an image to show the difference before and after the spot removal in Lightroom. Since I just did it quickly right now it's a little crude. There may be better ways to do this in PS, I'm far from an expert in post processing/retouching as I try to do the bare minimum necessary. If other users here have better ways to deal with it I'd certainly be interested as well.

example1.JPG example2.JPG
 

Tina Boes

New Member
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Jul 25, 2021
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I've been regularly using stacking for a few years now, and also often encounter this problem. As you said, the issue is the large distance between the focal plains. When the background is in focus, the acorn is blurred and expands further than when it is in focus, covering part of the background. So there's a 'dead' area with no relevant information for either. It becomes increasingly worse with higher magnification and wider aperture.

I use Helicon for stacking, and in cases like this I use the Retouching tool to manually brush in these areas. This does not completely solve the problem, but improves the result. If the 'halo' is still very noticable I use the spot removal tool in Lightroom to replace the blurred parts with a suitable part of the image, usually close by. If this isn't possible I just try to adjust the clarity/contrast in that area to make it less noticable and better match the rest of the image.

I've attached two 150% crops of an image to show the difference before and after the spot removal in Lightroom. Since I just did it quickly right now it's a little crude. There may be better ways to do this in PS, I'm far from an expert in post processing/retouching as I try to do the bare minimum necessary. If other users here have better ways to deal with it I'd certainly be interested as well.
I have been doing pretty much the same technique as you. Most often I use Photo Shop Clone stamp and just go around the edges as much as I can. Thanks for the input on why it happens!
 

Helix_2648

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Apr 20, 2020
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There's a simple way to remove it... render your stack once with method B and once with method C. Than start a second instance of Helicon Focus and render both pictures again. After that start the retouching module, set the brush to 100%, select the picture from method B and paint it all over (so that your picture looks 1:1 as your previous method B picture). At the end select the picture from method C and set the brush to 15-20% and just correct the halos.

I explained this also in my mushroom tutorial which you can find here:

Tutorial
 

Tonyv138

New Member
1
Nov 27, 2021
11
16
419
There's a simple way to remove it... render your stack once with method B and once with method C. Than start a second instance of Helicon Focus and render both pictures again. After that start the retouching module, set the brush to 100%, select the picture from method B and paint it all over (so that your picture looks 1:1 as your previous method B picture). At the end select the picture from method C and set the brush to 15-20% and just correct the halos.

I explained this also in my mushroom tutorial which you can find here:

Tutorial
Hello Helix, and thank you. I tried to follow your guide and i seem to be failing to get rid of the halo still. After the second render of pictures it is still there. I even rendered with radius and smoothing of 1 for both B and C. Any thought on what I am doing wrong would be appreciated
 

Tonyv138

New Member
1
Nov 27, 2021
11
16
419
Hey T Tonyv138, do you see the halos if you render the stack with method C?
I think so. Take a look along the back side of the acorn, including the cap. I experimented with different smoothing/radius, similar output. Touching up from source is impossible as the acorn changes perspective as focus changes. I am using in camera focus bracketing. I hope for help to learn and correct the issue natively in Helicon with your help.

Otherwise, I thought it would help if i learn better masking in PS to correct and correct it in post.

Thank you Tony
 

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