If you are interested in some really fun online learning, we just posted some new June macro classes. If you shoot a lot of macro and focus stack, you are going to really like this program. It runs $30 for a year license, or $115 to own it. They are both full-featured focus stacking software suites, and on the surface seem to offer almost identical features and promise comparable results. You only need Helicon Focus Lite to combine images. or more correctly, Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus, have become two iconic names in today’s macro photography world, and both are as synonymous with focus stacking as Stackshot and Mitutoyo. Helicon Focus Quick Start (Mac OS X) This short video will demonstrate how Helicon Focus is running on Mac OS - basic focus stacking workflow from opening of the images to saving of the output, useful tips and impressive stacking results. ![]() This makes it easy to see if you missed an area in your final shot. You can watch where focus is being added image by image. I also really like the threshold view Helicon shows as it combines the images (see image above). With 20 JPEGS in the image above in Helicon Focus it took 10 seconds. With RAW files from my D850 it was taking around 40 minutes on a souped up iMAC to combine 50 images. I’ve started using JPEGs for my focus stacking to speed things up. Process speed is greatly affected by your file quality, with RAW files taking the longest. I’ve blogged before about combining images in Photoshop, so why would you want to use third party software? Simply because you have more control on how the images are combined, and most importantly, speed! Helicon Focus is way, way faster than Photoshop when combining images. For this columbine flower my settings were 20 images at F8 with a distance set to ‘5’ in my D850. Helicon Focus is a digital image processing tool that merges the focused areas of several partially focused images to increase the depth of field in an image. Start with the part of the subject closest to your lens, and change focus points going deeper and deeper into the shot. ![]() If you don’t have this, you can manually change the focus and get the same effect. Very conveniently, Helicon Focus offers a 30 day trial with full functionality. With Nikon cameras you can just set up the Focus Shift in your camera. To get critical focus through most of the flower, you would need to combine multiple images. Imagine photographing a columbine, a flower with a lot of depth. This software performs focus stacking, which radically increases depth of field in your macro image. ![]() We are getting ready to start our next round of macro classes, and I wanted to mention a class favorite Helicon Focus Lite.
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