Helicon Focus

[407370]

So I sunk part of my life savings into Helicon Focus and I could not be happier.

First stack was the face of a small (very detailed) Pig Statue. The overall size of the face is about the same as a normal sized finger print.
I had to get my camera very close and using as near F2.8 as I could get to fill the frame. This of course meant that I was taking very narrow slices.
It turns out I needed 70 slices just to cover the entire 4 Cm / 1.5 Inch face. Examples below:

I loaded all 70 RAW Files into Helicon and used all the default settings. I have no clue what the settings mean or what difference they make to a final image...... yet.

Please note that I started the stack in the wrong place. I pointed the camera to start the the Focus Shift process at the nostrils thus missing out the tip of the nose. That's about 1mm out and its really noticeable.


So I hit the render button and about 10 minutes later I got a TIFF: The quality of the render is awesome. See below the biggest JPG of that rendered TIFF that the forum will let me post:

This is straight out of Helicon and not edited except for sizing.

One of the export options is:

So of course I had to try it. The output is a web based animation thats not really useful for sharing. The first animation was full size 45MP files and was around 700Mb. Learning from this I produced a 10% size version that is much more manageable and after I put it through an animation software it looks like this:

Drastically reduced in size / quality to fit forum.

All in all a very good software.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[smoke665]

Interesting, nice write up. I've looked at this before, it seems to pull ahead of PS as the layers go up. The price I saw wasn't excessive though, something I definitely consider if I did a lot of focus stacking.

 

[407370]

Interesting, nice write up. I've looked at this before, it seems to pull ahead of PS as the layers go up. The price I saw wasn't excessive though, something I definitely consider if I did a lot of focus stacking.

I do a lot of focus stacking and normally use Luminar NEO but the output from Helicon is waaayyyy more accurate and significantly faster. Luminar wOrks well up to 10 images but 70 would just confuse it.

Dont use Photoshop or Lightroom so cant comment.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[Woolsocks]

I've tried it dude. I downloaded the program and have since been stacking images. But it can't handle ghosting at all. And photoshop does.

 

[407370]

I've tried it dude. I downloaded the program and have since been stacking images. But it can't handle ghosting at all. And photoshop does.

Then you are using it wrong.

 

[Woolsocks]

Then you are using it wrong.

Yep I thought so. I just click add images. Then render. Is there more to it then that?

 

[407370]

Yep I thought so. I just click add images. Then render. Is there more to it then that?

Try a look here:

 

[Thiophilos]

Yep I thought so. I just click add images. Then render. Is there more to it then that?

Stacking apps like Helicon and Zerene allow you to edit the stack. You can often clone in parts from a frame you select to fix things like an antenna that moved.

I have worked with trial versions of Helicon and Zerene, and they work fine. But considering the limited task they do, IMO they are expensive. Photoshop does a fine job of it. OK, it is klutzy and slow, but it is fine for occasional stacking.

 

[Woolsocks]

Stacking apps like Helicon and Zerene allow you to edit the stack. You can often clone in parts from a frame you select to fix things like an antenna that moved.

I have worked with trial versions of Helicon and Zerene, and they work fine. But considering the limited task they do, IMO they are expensive. Photoshop does a fine job of it. OK, it is klutzy and slow, but it is fine for occasional stacking.

I do that all the time in photoshop before I stack. I kind of thought I was cheating.