How To Do Focus Stacking in Photoshop

Macro photography’s razor-thin depth of field makes it nearly impossible to get everything in a close-up shot sharp at once, which is exactly the problem focus stacking solves by combining multiple photos taken at different focal points. This tutorial covers shooting a proper set of images for a focus stack, reviewing and exporting them in Lightroom, then loading and blending them together in Photoshop so far more of the scene ends up in focus than any single shot could capture.

Understanding Focus Stacking and When to Use It

Focus stacking combines several photos of the same scene, each taken at a slightly different focal point, into one image with a far greater effective depth of field.

1. Recognize the Shallow Depth of Field Problem

   Notice that macro photography’s very tight focal range often leaves one subject sharp while another, even close by, falls out of focus.

2. Understand How Stacking Extends the Focal Range

   Recognize that combining several images, each with a different area sharp, produces one final image with a much wider effective range in focus than any single frame could achieve on its own.

Setting Up a Tripod and Remote Shutter Release

Keeping the camera perfectly still across every frame of the stack is essential, since Photoshop needs to align and blend the images as though they were shot from one fixed position.

3. Mount the Camera on a Tripod

   Set the camera up on a tripod so its position stays exactly the same for every image in the focus stack.

4. Use a Remote Shutter Release

   Use a remote trigger to fire the shutter without physically touching the camera. In the video, one PocketWizard sits on the camera, connected with the shutter release cable, and a second PocketWizard fires it.

Why a Remote Shutter Release Reduces Camera Shake

Even a camera mounted securely on a tripod can shift slightly the moment a finger presses the shutter button directly. Triggering the shutter remotely instead removes that point of contact entirely, keeping the camera as still as possible across every frame that needs to align later.

Shooting in Manual Focus Across a Range of Focal Points

Manually rotating the focus ring a small amount between each shot, rather than relying on autofocus, is what builds up the range of focal points a stack needs.

5. Switch the Lens to Manual Focus

   Set the lens to MF so the focal ring can be adjusted by hand without autofocus overriding it.

6. Capture a Sequence of Focal Points

   Starting from the nearest point that should be in focus, take a picture, rotate the focus ring slightly, take another picture, and repeat until the entire needed range has been captured.

Why Manual Focus Is Required for Focus Stacking

Autofocus would fight against the deliberate, incremental focus changes a stack depends on, refocusing on whatever it detects rather than holding the specific focal point intended for each frame. Manual focus keeps full control over the focal ring, allowing each shot in the sequence to land at a precise, intentional point along the range being captured.

Reviewing the Focal Progression in Lightroom

Scrolling through the imported images side by side in Lightroom makes the shifting focal point from shot to shot easy to see before deciding which frames belong in the stack.

7. Import the Captured Images Into Lightroom

   Bring the full sequence of images into Lightroom for review.

8. Scroll Through to See the Focus Shift

   Click through the images from one end of the sequence to the other, noticing how the sharp area moves from one part of the scene to another with each shot.

Exporting the Selected Images as JPEGs

Exporting the chosen frames as reasonably sized JPEGs, rather than full-resolution files, keeps the upcoming stack lighter to work with in Photoshop.

9. Select the Images to Include in the Stack

   Shift-click all the images captured while rotating the focus ring that should be part of the final stack.

10. Export as JPEGs at a Reduced Size

    Right-click and export the selected images as JPEGs, resizing them down, such as to 1500 pixels wide, since they don’t need to be full resolution for this process.

Loading Images Into a Stack in Photoshop

Photoshop’s Load Files Into Stack script brings every exported image in as its own aligned layer within a single document, without opening each one separately.

11. Open Load Files Into Stack

    Go to File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack.

12. Browse to and Select the Exported Images

    Choose Use Files, click Browse, and shift-click all the exported JPEGs to bring them in together.

13. Enable Automatic Alignment

    Check the option to attempt to automatically align source images before clicking OK, letting Photoshop line up every layer.

Blending the Stack With Auto-Blend Layers

Auto-Blend Layers’ Stack Images mode automatically figures out which parts of each layer are sharpest and builds layer masks that reveal only those areas.

14. Select All the Loaded Layers

    Click the top layer, scroll to the bottom, hold Shift, and click the bottom layer to select every layer in the stack.

15. Open Auto-Blend Layers

    Go to Edit > Auto-Blend Layers.

16. Choose Stack Images

    Select Stack Images rather than Panorama, since Stack Images is the mode built specifically for focus stacking.

17. Enable Seamless Tones and Colors

    Check Seamless Tones and Colors so the blended result looks consistent across the transitions between layers.

Why Seamless Tones and Colors Matters When Blending

Without this option, small exposure or color differences between the individual frames can create visible seams where one layer’s mask hands off to the next. Enabling Seamless Tones and Colors lets Photoshop smooth out those small inconsistencies as it blends, so the transitions between the sharp areas from different layers read as one continuous image.

Reviewing the Automatically Generated Layer Masks

Photoshop generates a unique layer mask for each layer in the stack, and inspecting them individually shows exactly how it identified which areas were sharpest on each frame.

18. Inspect Each Generated Mask

    Alt/Option-click each layer’s new mask thumbnail to view it individually and see which areas Photoshop determined were in focus on that particular layer.

19. Review the Combined Result

    Toggle layers on and off to see how the masks combine, piece by piece, into one final image with a far greater range in focus than any single source photo.

Why This Approach Works

Shooting on a tripod with manual focus, rather than trusting autofocus or a handheld camera, is what guarantees a set of frames precise and consistent enough to actually stack together. Loading every image into one document with Load Files Into Stack, instead of copying and pasting layers individually, keeps the alignment process fast and automated. Letting Auto-Blend Layers generate the masks automatically, rather than trying to hand-mask each frame’s sharp area, is what makes focus stacking practical for a sequence of many images rather than just two or three.

Final Thoughts

Focus stacking turns a lens’s normal optical limits into a solvable problem, extending the depth of field of a macro shot far beyond what a single exposure could ever capture. The same tripod-and-manual-focus capture process, followed by Load Files Into Stack and Auto-Blend Layers, works for any close-up subject with more detail than one frame’s focal range can hold.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Shoot the stackTripod, remote trigger, lens on MF; turn the focus ring a little between shots
• Export from LightroomShift-click the frames, right-click > Export as JPEG, about 1500 px wide
• Load the photosFile > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack > Use Files > Browse
• AlignCheck Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images
• Select all layersClick the top layer, then Shift-click the bottom layer
• BlendEdit > Auto-Blend Layers > Stack Images, Seamless Tones and Colors checked