Focus stacking tutorials?

Any good Gimp focus stacking tutorials around? I have run several web searches but came up with minimal results.

I’m looking for a simple method of focus stacking on a Linux platform

Thanks in advance

If you don’t mind another tool there is https://github.com/PetteriAimonen/focus-stack

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I doubt there is any good way to do focus stacking in GIMP, but would be pleased if someone tells me I am wrong. I have used the free software Combine ZP with great success. This software is popular with scientists for stacking confocal microscope images and is great with digital camera images.

You can try the process described by Shane Milton using enfuse (Hugin) and GIMP

Free focus stacking does not really work. Tools are more like historic line command relics.

Best free one I tested was Picolay.

I suggest to look at Affinity Photo when they have a 50% discount going and one can buy it for below $30 - at least you can buy it with a one time price, and not rent it.

Not free, exept for the 30 days trial, but I have tried Zerene Stacker.
I can’t really tell how good it is, but I tested it, and it worked for me under Linux :slight_smile:
But life got in the way, so my 30 days trial was more like a one-weekend-trial. But macro and focus stacking is fascinating stuff, so I will get back to it some day.

As I recall Shane doesn’t explicitly include the actual command lines (if so I missed them). The same basic procedure is covered by John Barrow’s clear tutorial here: Focus Stack Tutorial for Linux using Enfuse in the Terminal - YouTube

I’ve only tried a couple of focus stacks but this seemed to work OK for me on Windows and the tools are the same on Linux:

Align
Windows: align_image_stack --gpu -C -m -a aligned_ *.tif
Linux: align_image_stack --gpu -C -m -a aligned_ $(ls)

Stack
Either: enfuse --exposure-weight=0 --saturation-weight=0 --contrast-weight=1 --hard-mask --output=stacked.tif aligned_*.tif

Review the command line parameters for both to verify they match what you want and have.

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