Median Stacking Photography

Median Stacking Photography

Median stacking is basically a way of combining multiple photos of the same scene to remove anything that moves. People, cars, waves, clouds, birds → if it is not in the same place in every frame/shot you take, it fades away (well you will make it go away). What is left is a clean, quiet version of the scene that often never actually existed in real life. It is how photographers get those empty tourist spots for example (that are usually packed and FULL of tourists all day every day).

What “Median” Actually Means

When you stack photos using the median blending method, the software looks at every pixel position across all frames and chooses the value that appears most often.

So, a building that is in every frame stays, a person who walks through only a few frames disappears and of course things like cars, birds etc. just vanish.

What You Need

To do median stacking properly, you only need a few (more or less) basic things:

• A camera with manual controls

• A tripod (maybe a remote)

• The ability to shoot many frames of the same composition

• Software that supports median blending (Photoshop, StarStaX, Affinity, and many more.)

Also → the more photos you have, the cleaner the result will be (always take more than you think as a general rule of thumb).

How to Shoot for Median Stacking

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