Designing a shadowbox diorama

[HelgeAndreas]

Lovely H!
The light is exquisite! A photographers dream to shoot there!

H

[TRAINS1941]

That sure is nice great work!

Jerry

[Sami]

Good job !

[Hauk]

Crap, another period of more than 120 days have passed without posting anything!
And progress is not that impressing, either...

But some work has been done. The roof is now finished, and it looks a bit more finished in the earlier test-assembly images:



I shot the image with the telephoto lens on my iPhone 12, and I tried another camera app than the standard Apple Camera app, CameraPixels Pro. This is an interesting app since it has functions like manual focus and focus bracketing. The image above is 10 exposures stitched together in Photoshop 2021.  PS clearly leaves something to be desired when it comes to focus stacking, so I am looking for a better software for this. I plan to try out Helicon Focus, have anyone tried it for focus stacking?

As usual, fingers crossed for significant progress before it has passed another 120 days!

[Bill Gill]

Hauk, some years back I used CombineZ for focus stacking. It's a free, open source program.
There are now other versions which are more versatile: CombineZM and CombineZP.

I believe the software now only works with Windows machines.

When I used CombineZ it worked well, but sometimes there were areas around the perimeter of the final image that had to be cropped.

If you Google CombineZ, CombineZM or CombineZP you can read more about the capabilities and limitations.

[finescalerr]

Affinity Photo seems to work well for photo stacking. As you know, it's the only true Photoshop competitor. The price is $49 and then you own it (and future upgrades) forever. I created the attached photo of an HO switcher from a few shots with an iPhone XS Max and Affinity's stacking feature. I realize it's much less complex than your photo so I hope it's of some value.

Yours is a wonderful photo of a superbly crafted model. In other words, you have done an adequate job.

Russ

[Ray Dunakin]

Those rafters are beautiful!

[Chuck Doan]

A beautiful build of a wonderful design.

[Peter_T1958]

It looks like a magnificent cathedral! Very, very impressive!!!

[Hauk]

It looks like a magnificent cathedral! Very, very impressive!!!

Yes, it does have some churchlike qualities!

By the way, I thought that the window in the end wall was pretty unique, but yesterday I discovered this on a totally different building in downtown Trondheim:



It seems that standard components for buildings is not a new thing. (The workshop was built in 1907, and this building is probably about  the same age)

[TRAINS1941]

Beautiful!  Those rafters are just perfect!

Jerry

[WP Rayner]

Beautiful work Hauk, as usual. The rafters are gorgeous, and yes, reminiscent of a cathedral. Concerning Helicon Focus, I've done a couple of simple tests with it, though not enough yet to really test its limits or form any sort of informed opinion on it. I have also tested Affinity and it is indeed a viable alternative to Photoshop for some and not just because of the pricing. However, having been a Pshop user since shortly after its launch in 1991, I'm committed to staying with it as it blends seamlessly into my CG workflow, automatically importing (through the Exr-IO plugin) Cryptomatte layered EXR files exported by the renderer. If your image editing needs don't extend to that level, then Affinity is an excellent alternative.

[Hauk]

Affinity Photo seems to work well for photo stacking. As you know, it's the only true Photoshop competitor. The price is $49 and then you own it (and future upgrades) forever. I created the attached photo of an HO switcher from a few shots with an iPhone XS Max and Affinity's stacking feature. I realize it's much less complex than your photo so I hope it's of some value.

Yours is a wonderful photo of a superbly crafted model. In other words, you have done an adequate job.

Russ

Thanks for the kind words! And thanks a lot for the tip about Affinity. I have now made a *very* quick test, and the result is interesting:



First impression is that Affinity works better than PS, but some more testing must be done before a conclusion can be drawn. 

[finescalerr]

It impressed me in the same way, Havard: The stacking feature seems better than Photoshop's. Your new photo seems to be a very good test, though, because of its complexity and depth. I'll be interested in your thoughts after you've spent more time with it. -- Russ

[Hauk]

It impressed me in the same way, Havard: The stacking feature seems better than Photoshop's. Your new photo seems to be a very good test, though, because of its complexity and depth. I'll be interested in your thoughts after you've spent more time with it. -- Russ

The stacking seems better, and maybe even as important, it is a one step process in Affinity. You just select the images for the stack, and then everything goes automatic. One advantage in PS might be that it is easier to manually edit the results.

One other thing that impressed me with Affinity is that even if the user interface is rather different from PS, it is still quite intuitive. I made my first test image while having a telephone converstion on an totally unrelated topic.

But why really struck me is that if Affinity can do the whole process with just a one-click input from the user, it should be possible to do the whole thing in the camera. An iPhone 12 should have more than enough processing power for the job.