Improving Your Image

You’ve stacked your image and you’re in the Editor — now what? This page helps you understand how to use the tools in Macro Studio to improve your image.

If you already know what you want, jump straight to a tool’s page from the Editor overview. If something feels off but you’re not sure what to do about it, start here.

Most stacks need very little. The unified stacking engine already aligns your frames, picks the sharpest detail everywhere, and clears up most color fringing automatically. A clean, well-exposed stack often just needs a crop and a save. Reach for the tools below only when something actually needs fixing.

A good default order

When you do edit, this order avoids redoing work:

Crop — set your framing first, so later fixes only touch pixels you’re keeping.
Look — settle on Natural vs. Enhanced early. It re-renders the whole image, so it’s the decision everything else sits on top of.
Retouch — restore any fine detail the stack softened, from a sharp source frame.
Defringe — neutralize any leftover color fringing on high-contrast edges (rarely needed).
Spot Correct — remove dust spots and stray debris.
Masks + Adjustments — set exposure, color, and contrast, treating subject and background separately where it helps.
Save — write your formats (and an optional watermark) in one pass.

You’ll rarely use all seven — skip straight to whichever rows below match what you’re seeing.

This is a convenience, not a rule. Retouch, Spot Correct, and Defringe paint pixels into the result, so they used to lock the Look once applied. They no longer do: Macro Studio keeps a log of every stroke, and changing the Look afterward rebuilds the image and re-runs your strokes onto the new version. Working out of order costs you a rebuild, not your edits.

The Look does still lock in a few cases — if a stroke log is incomplete or was recorded by an older version, if the image can’t be re-rendered (a reopened DNG whose source frames have moved, or a single-image edit), or simply while you’re inside an editor or a rebuild is already running. The slider tells you which one applies when it’s unavailable.

Retouch, Spot Correct, and Defringe, plus the Masks, Adjustments, and History panels, live in Advanced mode. If you don’t see them, flip the Standard / Advanced switch at the top-right of the Editor. (HISTORY needs one more thing: it stays hidden until the current image actually has edits to show.) Crop is available in both modes. See Standard and Advanced modes.

Find your problem

”The image is too bright”

By default, Macro Studio opens your photo or stack at the brightness of the in-camera JPEG — the same rendering your camera showed you on its screen, and what the Library displays as a thumbnail — so the Editor starts from the brightness you expected rather than the darker, flatter raw decode. For most shots that’s exactly what you want.

On some images the match can read too bright — most often a bright subject on a dark background — or you may simply prefer to start from a flat, neutral raw decode and set the brightness yourself.

→ Turn off Match camera brightness in Preferences. With it off, images open at a neutral raw brightness instead. The setting is sticky and applies to images you open or stack afterward, so reopen the image to see the change. To adjust a single image without changing the default, use Exposure in Adjustments instead.

”The framing isn’t right”

Alignment can leave thin uneven borders, or you may just want a tighter composition or to rotate your image.

→ Crop. Straighten, choose an aspect ratio, and trim the edges. Non-destructive — reopen it any time. For posting to social media, many users find 4:5 to be the best overall ratio, or 1:1 if the taller framing doesn’t quite fit your image.

”An insect moved an antenna and now there are multiple antennae, with ghosting”

If the subject moves while you are snapping images, there may be multiple frames where an antenna is in focus, so you get duplicate copies in the finished stack.

→ Retouch. Paint the antenna back in from the single source frame where it was sharpest, and cover up the ghosted versions with clear background from another source frame.

”There are red, green, or blue dots or lines in the image”

Chromatic aberration can leave colored dots and hairlines on out-of-focus highlights — web junctions, glassy speculars, backlit edges. Macro Studio removes most of this automatically while stacking, but if it doesn’t catch everything, you can use this tool to clean them up.

→ Defringe. Brush over the fringe to neutralize the false color while keeping detail. If a faint gray speck remains, clean it up with a quick Spot Correct.

”There are dust spots, sensor specks, or stray debris”

Small dark spots in the background, a stray hair on a petal, a fleck of pollen you didn’t notice at the time.

→ Spot Correct. A content-aware spot brush — click the blemish and it samples clean nearby pixels.

”The whole image is too dark, too bright, flat, or off-color”

Overall exposure, contrast, or white balance that should apply to the entire frame.

→ Adjustments on the Global mask — Exposure, Contrast, Highlights/Shadows, Temperature/Tint. See the slider guide below.

”I want to treat the subject and background differently”

Brighten the subject without lifting the background, smooth the bokeh without softening the subject, or warm the subject while cooling the background.

→ Masks + Adjustments. Pick the Subject or Background mask (auto-detected; refine with the brush), then adjust — the change affects only the masked area.

”The background is noisy or grainy”

Common on high-ISO or deep-shadow shots, and most visible in smooth out-of-focus areas.

→ Denoise on the Background mask (in Adjustments). Keep Denoise low on the Subject mask so you don’t soften real detail.

”The subject looks a little flat or soft”

You want more bite in the surface texture and edges — setae, scales, veins, fibers.

→ Texture, Clarity, and Sharpness on the Subject mask (see below).

”What is this species?”

→ Species Identification. Identifies your subject with a scientific name and confidence score, and can draft a social caption.

The Adjustment sliders — when to reach for each

The Adjustments panel has twelve sliders. That page covers ranges and exact behavior; here’s when to reach for each. They apply to the current mask — pick Global, Subject, or Background first (or a radial or linear mask that you create).

Exposure and tone

Exposure — the image is globally too dark or too bright, or you’re matching brightness across several stacks.
Contrast — it looks flat (add) or harsh (reduce).
Highlights — bright areas are washed out (reduce to recover) or look too gray (add to open them up).
Shadows — dark areas are crushed and you want detail back (add), or muddy and you want them deeper (reduce).

Color

Temperature — the whole image is too cool/blue or too warm/amber.
Tint — there’s a green or magenta cast (e.g. a green bounce from nearby foliage, or fluorescent light).
Vibrance — colors look dull and you want them richer without overcooking the already-saturated ones. Your go-to saturation control.
Saturation — you need a flat, every-color saturation change. Use sparingly; reach for Vibrance first.

Detail

Texture — bring out fine surface detail: insect setae, mushroom gills, fabric weave.
Clarity — add midtone punch / local contrast for depth, without changing overall exposure.
Sharpness — a little extra edge bite on top of the stack’s own sharpness. Apply lightly.
Denoise — reduce luminance grain, especially on high-ISO shots and in smooth backgrounds.

Less is more. The stacker already produced a clean, sharp result, so adjustments are for taste and tone — not heavy correction. Use the panel’s eyeball toggle for a quick before/after as you go.

See Adjustments for full ranges, defaults, and step-by-step recipes.