Macro

Focus Stacking Service for Macro-Sharp Product Photos

Frame-by-frame sharpness for jewelry, watches and small products at macro.

Macro photography forces a trade: the closer you get, the thinner your plane of focus becomes, and a ring shot at f/8 can render the front prong crisp while the band dissolves into blur. Our focus stacking service solves this by blending a series of frames — each focused on a different plane — into one image that is sharp from front to back. It is the standard technique behind jewelry, watch, and small-product photography that holds up to ecommerce zoom.

What Our Focus Stacking Service Includes

Focus stacking (also called focus blending or z-stacking) starts in your studio: you shoot a bracket of identical frames, moving the focal point step by step from the nearest edge of the product to the farthest. We take it from there. Our editors align every frame, compensate for the slight magnification shift that focus changes introduce, then blend the sharpest regions of each exposure into a single composite. Every order includes hand-checked masking, cleanup of the halos and ghost edges that automated merging leaves on reflective metal and faceted stones, dust and sensor-spot removal, and delivery in the format your workflow needs — layered PSD, TIFF, or web-ready JPEG. If you want the composite carried further, we can pair stacking with background removal, color correction, or full high-end retouching in the same pass.

Our Process, Frame by Frame

1. Upload your stack. Send RAW, TIFF, or high-quality JPEG frames through our secure transfer — a handful of frames or dozens, whatever the product required. 2. Alignment. We register every frame and correct the focus-breathing drift between shots, so fine textures do not double. 3. Blending. An editor builds the composite in Photoshop, hand-masking the transitions where automated stacking fails — polished bezels, pavé settings, engraved dials. 4. Edge and artifact cleanup. Halos, ghosting on overlapping elements, and soft seams are retouched out at pixel level. 5. Finishing and QC. Exposure, color, and background are matched to your spec, then a second editor reviews the file before delivery.

Built for Jewelry, Watches, and Small Products

Jewelry brands use stacking so a hallmark, a center stone, and the far side of a band all read sharp in the same shot. Watchmakers rely on it to keep dial texture, hands, and bezel engraving in focus at once — details a single macro exposure cannot hold. It serves electronics, cosmetics, coins, miniatures, and any catalog product photographed close enough that depth of field collapses. Color Experts International has spent 40 years in production photo editing. More than 250 in-house editors handle work for 12,000+ brands, including Amazon and MGM, which means your stacks are processed by people who blend product composites daily — not occasionally.

Turnaround and Pricing

Completed stacks ship within 24 hours as standard, with rush delivery available in 4 to 12 hours when a launch cannot wait. Because effort scales with the depth of the stack and the finishing you need, focus stacking is quoted per project: use the calculator on our pricing page for an estimate, or get a quote and we will return an exact per-image price for your stacks. Our editing services start at $0.20 per image, and every new client can test us first — send 2 images through our free trial and judge the blend quality before you commit.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many frames can you blend into one image?

There is no fixed limit. Send the full bracket you shot — deep macro stacks with dozens of frames are routine. More frames generally produce smoother focus transitions, and we will flag any frames that hurt the composite rather than help it.

Why not just use automated stacking software?

Automated merging works until it meets reflective metal, faceted stones, or overlapping elements, where it produces halos, ghost edges, and misplaced blur. Our editors run every composite through hand-masked correction, which is the difference between a merged file and a publishable one.

What should I send, and how should I shoot the stack?

RAW or TIFF frames give us the most latitude, though high-quality JPEGs work. Shoot from a tripod with fixed exposure and lighting, changing only the focus point between frames. Minor shifts are fine — alignment correction is part of every order.

Price your job instantly Try 2 images free Get a quote