#Helicon focus software license#
#Helicon focus software free#

Fundamentally, what a focus stacker is doing is working out the 3D geometry of the scene, figuring out which pixels contain the most information about that geometry, and then projecting that constellation of data to form a new image without hopefully getting anything in the wrong place. Distance changes also introduce parallax, so the positions of things in the frame change relative to each other. In focus distance based stacking subject-lens group distances change and the lens's effective focal length changes, creating a bit more complex variation in scale.

In geared displacement focus stacking the subject-camera distance changes, meaning scale changes through the stack even though the focal length is held constant. The input for the eucalyptus stack is 13MB.Ĭlick to expand.Yeah, alignment's the word in use but it's not really the word I'd choose. Sort of a side bonus is one's dealing with 8MP frames which tend to compress to 200-300 kB each as jpegs. Post focus stacking is mainly about speed of acquisition, which is valuable in fieldwork with wind motion.

#Helicon focus software free#

I'm not aware of free stackers besides enfuse which remain in development.

#Helicon focus software license#

Though, for a limited amount of stacking beyond the 30 day trials, the Helicon annual license is probably lowest cost. Lacking other criteria, I suppose one might start with Affinity as the lowest long-term cost option with sufficient capability and try the various Zerene and Helicon pricing tiers depending on need. For any two or three adjacent images in the stack this isn't much of a factor but, for the 50-100 image stacks I find typical when approaching 1:1, it's plausible an accidental stacker might not be the best choice. Stitching tends to combine areas from two or three images with similar focus distance and depth of field while stacking's prone to tens and occasionally hundreds of overlapping images with different focus points. While not being especially familiar with merging algorithms, I suspect enfuse operates at something of a disadvantage to Affinity, Zerene, Helicon, and other stacking specific implementations such as the one in Photoshop.