Damith Danthanarayana

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Helicon Focus Software for Focus Stacking

What is Focus Stacking?

Focus stacking is used in many genres of photography, but it’s perhaps most commonly used in landscape and macro photography. It is a digital image processing technique that combines multiple images taken at different focus distances while blending the in-focus areas of the images to increase the perceived depth of field. To use this technique, you have to take several images of the same scene, focusing on a different part of the subject for each shot. Then you can use software to blend all the sharp areas together and produce a completely sharp image.

Helicon Focus Software for Focus Stacking?

Helicon Focus is a fantastic piece of software from Helicon Soft that was originally designed for macro photographers. But it can also be used for other types of images, such as landscapes, gardens, still-life photography, and even architecture.

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You can use Photoshop for focus stacking. So why do you need another piece of software? Yes, you can. I also use Photoshop sometimes. But it is not specially programmed for focus stacking. So it’s slow, and the results are not always perfect. But Helicon Focus is dedicated and specialized software used for focus stacking. So, it produces results superior to Photoshop.

Download:

Helicon Focus (Focus stacking and 3D model building)

Helicon Remote (Remote camera control, automated focus / exposure bracketing, time-lapse)

Helicon Focus hardware requirements

The recommended system configurations are:

  • 4-core processor or higher

  • 16 Gb RAM or higher

  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or more

Minimum system requirements:

  • 64-bit OS

  • 2 GHz processor

  • 4 Gb RAM

  • Resolution: 1280 x 1024

Settings

Helicon Focus is very easy to use and produces stunning results with its default settings. And it allows the user to alter the output based on a number of settings, algorithms, and parameters.

There are three algorithms for focus stacking using this software: methods A, B, and C. Which of those methods will work the best depends on the image, the number of images in the stack, and whether the images were shot in random or consecutive order.

Method A

Computes the weight for each pixel based on its contrast, after which all the pixels from all the source images are averaged according to their weights.

Method B

Finds the source image where the sharpest pixel is located and creates a "depth map" from this information. This method requires that the images be shot in consecutive order from front to back or vice versa.

Method C

Uses a pyramid approach to image representation. It gives good results in complex cases (intersecting objects, edges, and deep stacks) but increases contrast and glare.

And there are some parameters required while using this software.

Smoothing Parameter:

All focus-stacking algorithms find and combine the sharp areas. Smoothing defines how the sharp areas are combined. Low smoothing produces a sharper image, but the transition areas may have some artifacts. High smoothing will result in a slightly blurry image without any visible transition areas.

Radius Parameter:

Radius is the most important parameter for processing. We mostly advise you to try different values. Start with the default value, then set it to its minimum and see what happens. Next, try to increase the value to get rid of any noise or artifacts, particularly halos along the edges. If your image has fine details and thin lines, as most images do, a low radius level (3-5) will probably yield the best results, although you will probably get more noise and a halo effect. So you'll need to try to find a balance. Increasing the radius can help get rid of or minimize halo. In general, if you have a halo effect, try increasing the radius until doing so helps to minimize the halo. At that point, stop increasing the radius, so as to preserve as much detail as possible.

Alignment Parameters:

If your camera (or subject) moves between shots, you may need to increase the values for the alignment parameters. These define how much the program is "allowed" to adjust vertical and horizontal positioning, angle of rotation and magnification of images in the stack. To change the alignment parameters, go to the Main Menu, open the "Preferences" dialogue (Main menu → Edit → Preferences...) and switch to the "Auto adjustments" tab.

The best tutorial about Helican Focus 8: https://www.heliconsoft.com/focus/help/english/HeliconFocus.html

Samples

Click on the images to see the original files provided by Helicon soft. You can try your own stacking by using those samples.


I use Helicon Focus software to focus stack a lot of my macro and extreme macro photographs. Here are a few samples.

Thank you for reading this article.

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