How to use Helicon focus where images are not identical
Posted: 21.08.2017 02:34
Hi all! I want to use try program after seeing Photoshop do a horrible job of blending focus for me.
What I am doing is shooting a photograph of a scene in a set with actors on 8x10 film. There are characters in a barbershop and some characters seen out the window, and there is not enough depth of field to get them all. Since the actors are human, they cannot possibly hold still enough throughout the 6 exposures needed to cover all the focus, so I have planned to shoot some background plates as well (with all actors gone) in case I need to paint in parts of the background. The problem is, the software can't possibly guess which parts of the photos I want to use from which photo in the stack, since people's heads will have moved, etc. and the existence of background plates is the only way to choose one photo I like of a person in the foreground, and then paint in other parts of the image around them (from a background plate) until I get to the next person I like in the background, and choose the photo of them that is most in focus (which will differ slightly in the person's position from the first photo of the foreground person).
Does that make sense?
I know this is the technique that Photographer Gregory Crewdson used to make his famous photographs on 8x10 film, but I just don't know the easiest way to stack focus with subjects that cannot stay perfectly still.
Can anyone help me?
What I am doing is shooting a photograph of a scene in a set with actors on 8x10 film. There are characters in a barbershop and some characters seen out the window, and there is not enough depth of field to get them all. Since the actors are human, they cannot possibly hold still enough throughout the 6 exposures needed to cover all the focus, so I have planned to shoot some background plates as well (with all actors gone) in case I need to paint in parts of the background. The problem is, the software can't possibly guess which parts of the photos I want to use from which photo in the stack, since people's heads will have moved, etc. and the existence of background plates is the only way to choose one photo I like of a person in the foreground, and then paint in other parts of the image around them (from a background plate) until I get to the next person I like in the background, and choose the photo of them that is most in focus (which will differ slightly in the person's position from the first photo of the foreground person).
Does that make sense?
I know this is the technique that Photographer Gregory Crewdson used to make his famous photographs on 8x10 film, but I just don't know the easiest way to stack focus with subjects that cannot stay perfectly still.
Can anyone help me?