Perhaps I'm the last person in the HF universe to adopt this workflow, but if not, sharing with others.
In the past I've always shot .raw/.nef -only- on my macro insect stacks. I figured, why bother with .jpg?
And a deep 100+ image stack, even with the new and faster HF9, and a very capable CPU, can ...

hi again el48tel and catherine,
i appreciate the additional info.
i have been getting very good results with my current optical setup, and of course HF9 for stacking..the latest HF release is terrific!
(here is a recent photo i took of a the eye of a hoverfly with bits of yellow pollen stuck here ...

thanks el48tel.
i just shot a ~500 image stack of the fine hairs above the eye of a fly...
i shot the stack at 2Mu steps...Mity 10x + DCR 150 + 180mm tube, on Nikon Z7...
then processed in HF B/1/1 three times...selecting "every image," "every other image," and "every third image"...
ie effectively ...

thank you both, catherine and el48tel for your tips and suggestions.
im familiar with allan walls. will revisit him.
i realized, belatedly, that there’s a super simple way to test this empirically…
i’ll shoot a deep stack at a very small step size… 1 or 2Mu…
then just run HF a few times…keeping ...

I’m using HF very successfully in conjunction with a Stackshot rail, a Z9, twin SB900 flashes at very low power to achieve 1/10,000th approx effective shutter speeds, a Mity 10x + tube lens optics, and with everything bolted down, to create very solid flawless insect images. I’m generally using step ...

yayyyy!
perfect:)
i had not tried that sequence.
THANKS.

I have deep (several hundred image) insect stacks...at single-digit micron steps...
for which I would like to select -all- images to stack for key sections of the stack (eyes perhaps)...
but then every other, or perhaps every third image to stack, for other visually less-important sections of the ...

You are 500% right, Catherine.
I was foolish to have thought AI slop would have anything to offer in resolving a scenario like this. (And I'm a tech guy even.)
Digging in a bit more to the error messages I was getting...
I realized that my Helicon Focus cache folder was the issue--my issue---and ...

I just upgraded from HF 8.3.11 pro lifetime to HF 9.0.2...
And HF 9.0.2 is consistently stopping mid-stack and throwing the errmsg
<red exclamation mark> Stacking error DNG Converter exited with error code 3221225477
relevant info:
* Adobe DNG converter is freshly installed and healthy. I ran a ...

outstanding!
thanks very much

I'm an HF pro lifetime licensed user...still running HF 8.3.11
I'm unclear on the upgrade path/process to HF beta 9.*
Do I download/install HF 9 first, then pay any additional upgrade charge?
Or what?
thx

wow...i really appreciate the quick reply catherine.
im running HF 8.3.11
and yes...<Fn>+<Page Up/Down> is the key.
that works perfectly!
I'd tried multiple other combinations--except for that one.
thank you very much for the superior customer support!

Just a footnote to the good suggestion from @BobStone. I'm a Nikon Z7/Z9 shooter...and I'm shooting deep stacks with dual SB900 flash units. Unfortunately, if you're using flash, Nikon disables the "silent shutter" option. I realize in most use cases, if you have big honkin' flash going off, "silent ...

When i retouch a deep (300+ image) stack, I find it more accurate to go through the "source image" pane, and select the layer to use, versus using F9, which for some reason does not work well or accurately on my system.
Mousing/selecting one-by-one is cumbersome and super slow.
And a scroll wheel ...

thank you and will do.
i really appreciate the quick reply:)