- Focus stacking software reviews manual#
- Focus stacking software reviews iso#
- Focus stacking software reviews free#
I always aim to minimise the editing steps staying as close to the RAW file as possible until I need to make the finishing touches, a such I do most of the basic editing with the RAW converter, including monochrome conversion, and then save the localised adjustments for photoshop and Nik software, I was concerned that adding another step would degrade the image. And it also came with a recommendation from another well known photographer working in same genre of photography as myself.įor a piece of software to be successful for me it not only has work well but also adapt and fit into my workflow. Although it is standalone it can export and import images from Lightroom with ease, a feature I have not tested as I am not a Lightroom user. Helicon Focus is a standalone piece of software dedicated to focus stacking and as such it has a better refined algorithm for blending the images, and some very useful features. And I didn't bother trying with any of the others. So at the time I abandoned the process and settled for the best I could from an image shot at F16, I ditched some of the foreground.
CS6 did a great job, but on close inspection there were small issues areas that were not sharp, and strange effects where bits of sand and grit had been duplicated. I had taken a number of frames all gradually moving the focus point in each image then blending them together to create one sharp image containing all the detail that I wanted to capture. The two portrait photographs in this article (above) were first attempted in Photoshop CS6. And as I sat and listened to the presentation I realised that this beautiful and simple piece of software could provide the answer to some problems I had recently had with some images I was working on. Is the 60mm f2.Helicon Focus is produced by HeliconSoft, a company that I had not heard of until a few months ago. Hint for (some) owners of the E-M5 Mark III re AF points The truth about the focus stacking feature of the EM-1 ii Macro Photography and the EM1 mark 2 / 60mm macro combo
Focus stacking software reviews iso#
HOW-TO: LiveND, 14 stops DR, ISO 25 RAW on any Olympus camera Photographing Hummingbirds Feeding From Flowers: Setup and Camera Settings.ĭigitizing slides with Olympus 60mm macro and Olympus Capture Using your MC-20 Teleconverter with your OLY 60mm Macro lens
Focus stacking software reviews manual#
Manual focus tele lens techniques with m4/3 for birds and BIF's Zerene gives the best final image by a large margin and the in camera stacking is noticeably better than Olympus Workspace. I have compared Zerene with Olympus Workspace and Olympus in camera stacking, by stacking the same bracketed images with all 3.
Try them both to find out which interface you like the best and to decide if their output is worth the purchase price.
Focus stacking software reviews free#
You can try both programmes for free, as each offer a free 30 day trial. The personal edition of Zerene is currently $89USD for a lifetime licence and the lite version of Helicon is $115USD. The advantage of the Helicon approach is a simpler workflow.īoth programmes come in personal, enthusiast, and commercial variants with Zerene currently slightly cheaper in each version. The advantage of the Zerene approach is that it leaves raw conversion algorithms (and their updating) to the specialists. Zerene's philosophy is to let the user use an external raw editor (Lightroom, Capture One, etc.) to convert raw files to 16bit TIFF files which are then imported into Zerene to be stacked. One of the major differences in workflows is the way they handle raw files. Helicon has a more user friendly interface. The end results from either programme will be indistinguishable but their interfaces and workflow are different. Both do a very good job of stacking and offer the ability to edit the stacked images to correct any small stacking errors. There are two major specialist stacking programs, Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus.