Quality Issues Photoshop against Helicon Focus

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Ken Ness
Posts: 1
Joined: 16.10.2020 21:59

Quality Issues Photoshop against Helicon Focus

Post by Ken Ness »

I have a stack of eighteen images taken manually, focusing from back to front, using a EF 100mm f/2.8L Canon lens mounted on a Canon 5D Mklll.
These were processed together in ACR 12.4 then Stacked in Photoshop 2020 (12.2.4) to produce an acceptable final image. There were a couple of minor issues in the final image but these were easily rectified ans the final image was acceptable, being sharp throught.
I had heard of Helicon Focus and its reputation so I though it would be an improvement on the Photoshop result. I processed the CR2 files in Focus and when finished opened both the PC version and the Focus version in Photoshop to draw a comparison.
I was disappointed to find area around the edge of the image out of focus, sections within the body of the image were not sharp and the image lacked the overall cripsness of the Phopotoshop version. Overall the Focus version was just not as good as the Photoshop equivalent.
Ok, I thought, maybe working from CR2 files was not the best approach as the .xmp files might not be used. I reprocessed the 18 images again in ACR and saved them as TIF files. I then repeated the exercise to produce a final image. If anything the result was worse.
At this point I'm running the 30 day trial with a view to purchasing the two components sold by Helicon. However I'm begining to question if this is a wise move in view of the results I'm getting. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a setting that I should be looking at?

Before I spend £150 on a licence, I need to be assured that this program offers a better quality result than the embedded feature I already have in Photoshop. I have heard such good things about this software - am I to be disappointed. Your suggestions as to what may be wrong would be appreciated.

Ken Ness ARPS
nick123
Posts: 8
Joined: 18.10.2020 22:32

Re: Quality Issues Photoshop against Helicon Focus

Post by nick123 »

Did you experiment with the different algorithms? I tried my first stack of 30 images a couple of days ago of a product I'd made, and was initially impressed with PS despite it's slow speed; I'd shot on textured card and PS messed that up, with patches of blurred and in focus areas, but I figured I could fix that.

Then I discovered Helicon by accident, and wow, what a difference; excellent performance with a great result and perfect handling of the textured background changing from in focus to blurred. I started experimenting with settings and found that while good and comparable to PS for the main part of the image, algorithm C was even sharper, with some edges of electronic components visible through acrylic now very sharp that previously were slightly blurred. Comparing with photoshop's effort on the same areas, I then noticed more issues with PS, as while similar to the results of algorithm B, various blotchy areas were evident. The only fail for me was with processing of Fuji raw files but that's not Helicon's fault as such, and converting to DNG before importing worked fine.

So, I'd suggest experimenting with settings and perhaps posting some comparisons which may prompt suggestions from others. Also, if you have decent JPG's as well as raw, try the JPG's when experimenting with settings because processing will be even quicker, and if you have a decent graphics card, enabling that in preferences may speed things even further. In my case, as well as opening all files in just 2 or 3 seconds, Helicon was ripping through around 1 image per second or even less, many times faster than PS can do.
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Catherine
Posts: 1163
Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Quality Issues Photoshop against Helicon Focus

Post by Catherine »

Ken Ness wrote: 16.10.2020 22:26 I have a stack of eighteen images taken manually, focusing from back to front, using a EF 100mm f/2.8L Canon lens mounted on a Canon 5D Mklll.
These were processed together in ACR 12.4 then Stacked in Photoshop 2020 (12.2.4) to produce an acceptable final image. There were a couple of minor issues in the final image but these were easily rectified ans the final image was acceptable, being sharp throught.
I had heard of Helicon Focus and its reputation so I though it would be an improvement on the Photoshop result. I processed the CR2 files in Focus and when finished opened both the PC version and the Focus version in Photoshop to draw a comparison.
I was disappointed to find area around the edge of the image out of focus, sections within the body of the image were not sharp and the image lacked the overall cripsness of the Phopotoshop version. Overall the Focus version was just not as good as the Photoshop equivalent.
Ok, I thought, maybe working from CR2 files was not the best approach as the .xmp files might not be used. I reprocessed the 18 images again in ACR and saved them as TIF files. I then repeated the exercise to produce a final image. If anything the result was worse.
At this point I'm running the 30 day trial with a view to purchasing the two components sold by Helicon. However I'm begining to question if this is a wise move in view of the results I'm getting. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a setting that I should be looking at?

Before I spend £150 on a licence, I need to be assured that this program offers a better quality result than the embedded feature I already have in Photoshop. I have heard such good things about this software - am I to be disappointed. Your suggestions as to what may be wrong would be appreciated.

Ken Ness ARPS
Hello Ken,

could you please upload the stack to our storage: http://office.heliconsoft.com/cloud/ind ... i8a2L8Zawn. We'll be happy to take a closer look at it and let you know about our findings.
Thank you.
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