Sometimes, you just can’t get the focus (depth of field) you want. I wanted the full Wolf moon and some rooftop hardware in focus, but I could only get one or the other. The solution was to “fuse” the best of both photos.
above: foreground sharp, moon out of focus
above: moon sharp, foreground out of focus
above: fuse the best parts of both
I used Windows Live Photo Gallery for this, although I am sure other photo editors have similar functions. In Photo Gallery, select the two (or more) photos you intend to fuse. Click Create > Photo Fuse. Your first selected photo appears full screen with a small floating selection box and a preview of the selected area from both (or all) photos (see below). Drag the box to select the area you want to change. Drag the corners or sides of the selection box to change a larger area. To finish, click the area you prefer under “Which do you like best?” You can repeat this process, fusing other areas. To save your work, click the Save button. I always leave “fuse” in the new filename to remind me how I’ve edited this particular photo.
Tip: I prefer to start with the photo that requires the fewest changes. If that’s not the first photo in the series, I rename the one I want to appear before the others in the gallery (or sort differently).
Fuse works best with photos that are composed nearly identically. The challenge here was that I had to move the camera up and to the left to autofocus on the moon. Then I pressed the shutter release halfway to lock focus. Finally, I moved the camera back down and to the right to frame the photo the same way.
Because the selection box is rectangular, I could not avoid selecting a tiny piece of the vent. Fortunately, I can’t see that that tiny piece is out of focus.
