As with most focus stacking programs, Helicon started out with macro shooting in mind but it can also do a great job for enhanced depth of field landscape shots.
Free star stacking software mac mac os x#
The program runs on both Windows and Mac OS X in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and runs multi-threaded on systems with multiple CPU cores so performance is well optimized for whatever system you want to run it on.īut all that power wouldn't be worth much if it didn't do a good job of course. This reputation is at least in part due to the fact that it's been around longer than the competition, but the real value of Helicon Focus goes much deeper than just that. Helicon Focus by HeliconSoft is typically regarded as the top focus stacking option. This way, if you ever see that color you know you have a "hole" in your merged stack. To help keep an eye out for this, first create a new layer underneath all your stacked layers and fill it with neon pink or some obnoxious color that will be highly visible if it shows through at any point. If you paint black on the mask for the layer as sharpest at some point you will have a transparent spot in the composite image unless you also paint white on some other layer. This isn't as easy as it might seem though as you have to be careful to have at least one layer visible at each point. This means the merge process is completely lossless and you can paint on the masks just like normal to tweak things. When Photoshop does finish, you will have a mask on each layer to control what is visible from each. This is not one of the faster things Photoshop can do, so be prepared to wait if you have a number of high resolution images to merge. Now you have to wait for the merge to complete. The "seamless tones and colors" checkbox at the bottom of the dialog should be turned on to avoid abrupt edges in the result. For focus stacking, you obviously want the second choice. The dialog gives you the choice to create a panorama or a stacked image blend. When this finishes, you can proceed to the Edit > Auto-Blend Layers menu command. Just select the "Auto" option here and don't worry about the other choices. The next step is to select all of your document layers and go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers to compensate for any slight camera movement between frames as well as adjust for minor magnification ratio differences due to lens extension that comes from changing focus. What you get is a single Photoshop document with one layer for each of your source images. The command is oddly called "Open in Photoshop Layers" rather than something more obvious but this actually makes sense when you realize it's really only the first step of the process. If you create a stack in Bridge of all images to be merged, you can open the set easily in Photoshop. It wasn't until CS5 though that it was really ready for prime time in my opinion. Starting with the CS4 release, Adobe added focus stacking directly into Photoshop. This week I'll look at several software programs to help you do it.
Otherwise this is a great program and the developer would be advised to port it to windows since it would compete well with the offerings over there.Last week I discussed merging multiple shots of the same subject taken at different focus distances to create images with extended depth of field using a technique known as focus stacking. planets) - since this would be a good way to reject poor quality frames. It would be great to have a tool for estimating the degree of geometric distortion of circular objects (e.g. It lacks fine control of alignment via alignment points that is possible with other programs Its not possible to shift click to select/turn on or off groups of frames in the image list, The "processings" panel is unstable and causes crashes when processing events are turned off or on, I solved this problem by fixing my mount :-) but you could also use the windows program "castrator" which does a great job at cropping and centering objects in the movie. If the object wanders too much over the frame of the movie, the program cannot track it effectively during alignment. It does however have some bugs and quirks which prevent it from being perfect:
It has some features that are unavailable anywhere else including a tool for correcting chromatic aberration that is unmatched by even high end image processing tools (like lightroom). Its easier to use than anything else I have used and gives comparable if not better results. Lynkeos is very well thought out software with an excellent user interface.
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