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Focus stacking (Photography, Extended Depth of Field)


Aseem Agarwala et al.: Interactive Digital Photomontage. ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2004), 2004.

! ALE 0.8.8.1 (David Hilvert). ALE is a freeware image-processing program used for tasks such as image mosaicking, super-resolution, deblurring, noise reduction, etc.

! A. Bercovici et al. (2009): Improving depth of field resolution for palynological photomicrography. PDF file, Palaeontologia Electronica, Vol. 12.

Bradley, A.P., Wildermoth, M. and Mills, P. (2005): Virtual Microscopy with Extended Depth of Field. Abstract, Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications (DICTA'05), Cairns, Australia.

Matt Brett, Digital Photography School, Canada: An Introduction to Focus Stacking.

flickr: Macro Viewers / Discussion: Focus stacking Tutorial. Using the freeware programme combinez5 and links to other tutorials. See also here.

FocOz: FocOz Software. This program is comparing different frames, selecting image elements of high definition from them all and rejects whatever is blurred. See also here (in German).

! Google Directory: Arts > Photography > Techniques and Styles.

Stefan Gross, Traumflieger: Photoshop-Workshops, Mehr Schärfentiefe mit Photoshop. The Photoshop procedure, a tutorial (in German).

! Alan Hadley, U.K.: CombineZ Movie CZM). The purpose of this free program is to increase depth of focus by combining pictures, but each picture should be in focus at a different depth into the scene. The program is especially useful to microscope users (e.g. palynomorphs) and macro photographers. Excellent! CZM is the latest version, it can process movies, take pictures, and has more macro commands but still has all of the functionality of the former CombineZ5. Still available:
CombineZ5. It works with older versions of windows, but is not maintained anymore. See also:
Yahoo Group combinez,
Forum discussions (Digital Grin), or
Wikipedia, CombineZM.
Tutorials are here (flickr), and there (Brian Valentine).

John Hart, Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado: IMAGE STACKS AND AUTOMONTAGE RESULTS Using the software AutoMontage (Synoptics Ltd.).

Helicon Soft Ltd., Kharkov, Ukraine: Helicon Focus. This is a shareware program that creates a completely focused image from several partially focused images by combining the focused areas. You can download and use the program for evaluation purposes for 30 days. Helicon Focus is designed for macrophotography, microphotography (fluid inclusions!) and hyperfocal landscape photography to cope with the shallow depth-of-field problem.
See also here.

! John Hollenberg, Digital Outback Photo: Workflow Technique 072. Review of Helicon Focus and CombineZ5 software. Excellent!

! Neal Immega, Houston Gem and Mineral Society: how2doit Articles. Go to:
Extended Focus in Macro Photography (PDF file). A CombineZ5 tutorial. See also here.

O. Jaurich (?): Mikroskopie und mikroskopische Bildverarbeitung, Nachbearbeitung der aufgenommenen Bilder. About CombineZ5 (in German).

Laurie Knight Photography: Index of Articles. These articles contain notes on focus stacking. See also: Other Focus Stacking Resources.

Biomedical Imaging Group, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland: Extended Depth of Field. Extended depth of field is an image-processing method e.g. to obtain in focus microscopic images of 3D objects. Free and easy-to-use focus stacking software.

Leeds Precision Instruments, Inc.: Image-Pro Plus 4.5. Creates a new in-focus composite image.

Rik Littlefield, Richland, WA: An Introduction to Extended Depth of Field Digital Photography (from News of the Lepidopterists' Society, Summer 2005) and
Extended Depth of Field Photography of Insects. The software used here was CombineZ5. See also: Extended Depth-Of-Field Using Panorama Tools.

! Jay Longson et al. (2010): Adapting Traditional Macro and Micro Photography for Scientific Gigapixel Imaging. PDF file, Fine International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging for Science.

Max Lyons, TAWBAWARE. TawbaWare is home to software, photographs, and writings. Go to:
TuFuse Pro. Graphical Exposure and Focus Blending Software.

Media Cybernetics Inc.: Image-Pro Plus. The Extended Depth of Field function in Image-Pro Plus provides you with the ability to display a stack of images as a composite, building in effect a three dimensional image.

Nuno Moreno et al. (2006): Imaging Plant Cells. PDF file, Handbook of Biological Confocal Microscopy, third edition, edited by James B. Pawley.

National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland (program developed by an employee of the Federal Government in the course of his official duties): ImageJ. ImageJ is a public domain Java image processing program. It runs, either as an online applet or as a downloadable application, on any computer with a Java 1.4 or later virtual machine. It can display, edit, analyze, process, save and print 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit images (including TIFF, GIF, JPEG, BMP, DICOM, FITS and "raw"). ImageJ supports "stacks" and standard image processing functions such as contrast manipulation, sharpening, smoothing, edge detection and median filtering. It can calculate area and pixel value statistics of user-defined selections, measure distances and angles and it can create density histograms and line profile plots.

! Optronics: Rincon. An image measurement and processing software. Rincon can combine a stack of images captured at different levels of focus and combine them into a single in-focus image.

! PICOLAY (from PICture OverLAY, by Heribert Cypionka, Institut für Chemie und Biologie des Meeres, Universität Oldenburg, Germany). This is a freeware program for Windows computers designed for the extraction of improved images from digital picture series. Excellent!

Reindeer Graphics, Asheville, NC: Focus Extender 1.0. Using Focus Extender, you can combine a series of photographs of the same field with different in-focus regions into a single in-focus image. Unrestricted 3-week demo of Focus Extender!

Ruedi Rottermann et al., Labor Praxis 2009, Leica: Mikroskopische Schärfentiefe. Wie scharfe Bilder entstehen. About the Leica Multifocus module. PDF file, in German.

Saphicon: AllFocus. The AllFocus software aligns images in the Z-stack by shifting and scaling them and creates a composite image by choosing pixels from the best-focused plane.

H.A. Schmid, Pilze Forum: Coolpix-Lupenmakro/CombineZ5 (Anleitung). About CombineZ5 (in German).

! Stefan Schorn, Mineralienatlas, Germany: Digitale Mehrebenen-Fotografie (DMF) / Digitale Fokuserweiterung. A tutorial, including a list of further focus stacking software programs (in German). See also: CombineZ5 / CombineZM.

SCM Altivid, Berlin: Mikroskopkamera (in German). A low-cost camera with extended depth of field.

! Synoptics Ltd., Frederick, MD: AUTO-MONTAGE FOR PERFECTLY FOCUSED 3D IMAGES, and Free downloadable demonstration software. Auto-Montage enables the processing of a series of images producing a high quality focused image. Lots of examples are listed here.

TAXONOMIC TOOLS BY COMPUTER 2 (TTBC2)

! Brian Valentine: Wonderful Photos: How to Increase your Depth of Field by Focus Stacking. A tutorial on using the freeware CombineZM (by Alan Hadley, U.K.).

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Focus stacking.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: CombineZM.

Kurt Wirz, Switzerland: www.focus-stacking.ch/. A gallery of beautiful focus stacking images.

! Zerene Stacker (by Zerene Systems, LLC., Rik Littlefield). This is is a "focus stacking" program designed specifically for challenging macro subjects and discerning photographers. The new programme Zerene Stacker is available for a free trial period.










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This index is compiled and maintained by Klaus-Peter Kelber, Würzburg,
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Last updated November 08, 2010

















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