Digiscoping for Macro - 13 Jan 2019

I've been playing with focus-stacking using Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 and learning how I can use my digiscoping rig for macro photography. After watching several You Tube videos on the subject I am happy to report that it is possible to extend depth of field for solitary subjects by photographing through the subject and stacking the images using post-processing.

As a test I focused on this ornament on the deck from just a few feet away. Starting with a close-focus I took a series of 12 images using the remote on the Sony a7III with the focal plane moving to farther distances. Here are 3 images showing front, center and back-focused images.

After making adjustments to the 1st image in the series using Adobe Lightroom Classic CC (exposure, highlights, clarity, noise reduction, etc.) I selected the entire series of images and clicked on "SYNC". This applied the corrections to all photos in the series.

Next, I right click on the image series and select "Edit in Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 / Open As Layers..."

Once all of the images are loaded inside Photoshop its just a matter of 

1. Select all of the Layers

2. /Edit/Auto-Align Layers (select "Auto" in the Projection Window)

3. /Edit/Auto-Blend Layers (select "Stacked Images" in the Auto-Blend Window)

This should give you a stacked-focused image.  You'll want to crop / resize / sharpen to taste for a final image. Additional steps can be taken to mask individual layers, but for now I'm avoiding the extra work.

 I can see this working nicely for a digiscoped image of stationary bird (owl, egret, etc.) and hope to try it out shortly.