Using several photos of same subject to make one good photo

robgmun · 25 Dec 2016 at 11:09

I'm not even sure if it's possible.

I have a dozen photos of the same subject but none of them are great, mostly ok but a little blured. i was wondering if there was a setting in photoshop or online service where i could load in a dozen photos or so and they are then combined to get the best sub-pixel detail out of it.

niko · 25 Dec 2016 at 12:15

you can use layers and selective "revelling" of area to do this, but its not quick to do well-its easy to do badly!

ethan · 25 Dec 2016 at 17:50

Its done quite often and there are a number of tutorials. I can remember watching a guy who did a Paris night scene by setting his fps to 10 whilst everybody else was doing long exposures. Suffice it to say his image was sharper after stacking. The Sony RX 100 does it automatically in handheld twilight mode.

King4aDay · 25 Dec 2016 at 22:08

Median blending might be useful here depending on the images.

englishpremier · 26 Dec 2016 at 17:04

They'll be software to do this automatically. It's done all the time for astro photography. DeepSkyStacker

Dj_Jestar · 26 Dec 2016 at 19:10

Lookup a "Brenzier Method" tutorial.

Phal · 26 Dec 2016 at 19:18

Personally, if your source/original shots are blurry then I don't think you'll be able to do much with them.

Focus stacking relies on having different shots that are in focus for different parts of your subject (mostly for macro shots with ridiculously small depths of field).

Other methods of stacking involve combining lots of sharp/in-focus but underexposed shots. This is used for night sky shots so you can try doing handhelds or sharp shots with no star trails caused by the earth's rotation.

voidshatter · 3 Jan 2017 at 01:28

This technique is pretty much standard these days in the digital era.

Columbo · 3 Jan 2017 at 09:39

Phal said:
Personally, if your source/original shots are blurry then I don't think you'll be able to do much with them.

This.
If the source material is poor then stacking multiple poor shots generally ends with the same problem. It's like placing broken plates on top of each other, in the end you are just left with a big pile of broken plates with not a good plate you can use.

The are however some editing techniques that could be used to at least enhance and improve a photo if it is not too bad. Post an example here so we can have a look.