Halos when stacking

[TasMan]

Hi All

The attached image is a 16 shot stack made with Zerene - is there any tips for minimizing the halos around the outer edge?

Any tips for cleaning up halos once they are there? (preferably with GIMP).

Any other CC/tips most welcome!

Thanks in advance (and just like to add what a great forum this is!)

Cheers
Rob

[rjlittlefield]

Usually the best way to get a clean edge against a uniform background is to run DMap with the contrast threshold slider set fairly high to isolate the edge. See the Advanced Retouching tutorial for illustration & discussion of that technique.

One thing that bothers me about this image is that it looks like we're seeing through fog. Nothing is very sharp, and it looks like there's a lot of light bleeding from bright areas into nearby dark ones.

What were your optics for this stack?

--Rik

[TasMan]

Thanks for that Rik.

Yes, it isn't the sharpest or the best quality of images - the problem (I think) was using my Elicar 55mm f2.8 macro lens stopped down to f16 on the end of a fully extended bellows, a mistake I won't make again in a hurry! (I'm looking to get myself a decent enlarger lens to use on my bellows in the near future)

Cheers
Rob