Stacking vs Merging in Light Room #115

Stacking vs Merging in Light Room #115

This week's pod is for Les in Virginia. Les wanted to know what the difference was between stacking and merging in Lightroom. Unfortunately, in the field, the two words are being used interchangeably to mean the same thing. But in Lightroom, they are actually different. Let's go over what Lightroom means and how photographers often use these two words. In Lightroom, when you stack images, it means that you're literally stacking them like a deck of cards. All you're doing is putting them one on top of the other without changing them in any way. And, like a deck of cards, you can separate them into individual pieces as well. Why would you do this? Well, take this example. A participant recently told me he had taken nearly 500 images of waves crashing into the side of a cliff, looking for the perfect shot. At best, he really only needs a handful of these images, so the question is, "Does he really need to be looking at the other 450 or so images?" If not, he could simply stack all of the unwanted images. This would go a long way to help declutter his folder in Lightroom. To stack the images together, simply click the images you want to stack and click Ctrl G or Command G. To unstack, click Ctrl Shift G or Command Shift G. That's G as in Georgia. If you click just the letter G, it will only take you back to the grid in the library and do nothing more.

So what is merging? Merging in Lightroom means that you're going to create a new file from several different files. Like when you do HDR. Let's say you have a high contrast scene and you've bracketed your image. In other words, you have taken multiple shots at different exposures and plan to bring them together for the perfect shot. This is called HDR. When you do an HDR in Lightroom, the program actually merges the files together and creates one new one. I can already hear everyone freaking out, but don't fret, the individual images will still be there and remain separate. What I mean is that if you're merging five images, you'll have six when you're done. Also note that in Lightroom, you have the option to stack those original five images under the final HDR image.

There's another problem. If you're bringing images that were shot at varying focus points so that you have a single image that has sharpness from front to back, we often call this focus stacking. But in the post-process, we're actually merging those files into one new file. So although out in the field we use the words merge and stack interchangeably, they do not refer to the same thing in Lightroom and Photoshop. I hope that was helpful. And if you have a question you want answered on the pod, please send an email to [email protected].