Focus Stacking iPhone RAW files in Luminar Neo!

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Focus Stacking iPhone RAW files in Luminar Neo!
Focus Stacking iPhone RAW files in Luminar Neo!

Bryant Creek Lake in Morgan Monroe State Forest in Indiana made with the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Luminar Neo's Focus Stacking tool.

The desktop software, Luminar Neo, is on sale through August 25 at heavily discounted price. It's inspired me take time this week exploring Neo's three great merge tools  – Panorama Stitching, Focus Stitching, and HDR Merge and share what they are capable of!

Today I spent some time experiementing with the Focus Stacking tool.

Focus Stacking (aka photo stacking and focus layering) is a technique used to create one photo that is sharp across multiple focal planes. It's done by combining several photos, each made with a different focal point. The result is one image in which everything througout the photo is in sharp focus. 

Luminar Neo's Focus Stacking tool makes it easy to combine multiple images into one. While I also create with "big" cameras (Fuji and Lumix), I love the capability of today's iPhones. So, I decided to try Neo's Focus Stacking tool with several RAW files made with my iPhone 15 Pro Max.

This was an interesting experiment that yielded a worthy result! See my landscape photo pictured above.

Here’s what I did.

Step 1

With the iPhone 15 Pro Max mounted on a tripod, I used the Native camera's main 24mm lens to create  four 48mp ProRaw photos.

I gave each photo a different focal point by tapping on a different focal plane in each image. So, on image 1, I focused on the the log in the foreground; for image 2 I focused on  the foliage at the water’s lower edge; for image 3, I focused on the trees in the upper third of the frame;  and for image 4, I focused on the clouds at the top of the frame.

Step 2

I opened Luminar Neo on my iMac and imported the four iPhone photos from Photos into Luminar Neo.

Step 3

I processed one of the four RAW files using Luminar Neo’s Develop editor which edits raw files.

Step 4

I made a preset that included the edits I made to this RAW file.

Step 5

I applied that new preset to each of the other three photos so all four RAW photos are now processed the same.

Step 6

I selected the four images and dragged them into Neo’s Focus Stacking tool.

Step 7

I used Luminar Neo to make a few other adjustments to the focus stacked photo.

The result is a very sharp and detailed 43mp, 44.5mb file.

Focus Stacking is one of Luminar Neo's three merge tools. I used one of Neo's other merge tools, Panorama Stitching, to create this panorama of an Indiana barn by stitching six iPhone 15 Pro Max RAW files.

I'm looking forward to making other photos using Luminar Neo's merge tools and images created with the iPhone!

Thank You!

 

 

 

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