Workflow questions

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apsphoto
Posts: 2
Joined: 21.02.2012 19:44

Workflow questions

Post by apsphoto »

Hi all,

I have downloaded and I am running on the 30 day trial. I did some stacks over the weekend of flowers and I am quite happy with it, but I have a few questions about workflow.

What is the best way to deal with movement? It seems to work very well if there is no wind but if there is some wind the subject might move directly, how much of this is handled when stacking? How does this apply to landscapes? My main interest is with landscapes so I know bush movement can be an issue.

Is it best to clone movement, or is there a way to determine the base position for alignment and then the movement is compensated?

What is the best work flow for an hdr stack? Process the hdr then stack? It does not appear that Helicon can read radiance or any of the 32bit formats, it would seem that stacking before tonemapping would give the best results. Is this planned for future version?

It does not appear to automatically reimport the stacked image to lightroom, the export is nice but having it reimport would be a really nice feature.

What about lens corrections before exporting in lightroom, will that cause any issues with stacking, I am assuming it should not if evenly appied to all images that are exported.

Thanks for any answers and sorry to ask so many, just trying to get the most out of my testing before purchasing.

Alan
brentbristol
Posts: 62
Joined: 15.12.2011 18:23

Re: Workflow questions

Post by brentbristol »

What is the best way to deal with movement? It seems to work very well if there is no wind but if there is some wind the subject might move directly, how much of this is handled when stacking? How does this apply to landscapes? My main interest is with landscapes so I know bush movement can be an issue.
I try to avoid movement as much as possible. Unless it is a very calm day or the subject is very sturdy I often end up taking a sample to my home and setting up in a more controlled environment. I would be interested in hearing what others do.

What is the best work flow for an hdr stack? Process the hdr then stack? yes. It does not appear that Helicon can read radiance or any of the 32bit formatsI process finished hdr's downsampled to 16bit per channel, it would seem that stacking before tonemapping would give the best results. I don't use radical tonemapping so tonemapping first seems to work fine, in photoshop I use "photorealistic/low contrast"

What about lens corrections before exporting in lightroom, will that cause any issues with stacking, I am assuming it should not if evenly appied to all images that are exported.
I do all lens corrections prior to stacking
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Stas Yatsenko
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Joined: 06.05.2009 14:05
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Re: Workflow questions

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

What is the best way to deal with movement? It seems to work very well if there is no wind but if there is some wind the subject might move directly, how much of this is handled when stacking? How does this apply to landscapes? My main interest is with landscapes so I know bush movement can be an issue.

Is it best to clone movement, or is there a way to determine the base position for alignment and then the movement is compensated?
There is no simple solution for this problem. Most probably you will be able to fix possible artifacts on the final image with helicon focus retouching brushes.
What is the best work flow for an hdr stack? Process the hdr then stack? It does not appear that Helicon can read radiance or any of the 32bit formats, it would seem that stacking before tonemapping would give the best results. Is this planned for future version?
Helicon focus can handle 16 bpc images which might be sufficient to preserve dynamic range. I would try to focus stack first and then stack HDR.
It does not appear to automatically reimport the stacked image to lightroom, the export is nice but having it reimport would be a really nice feature.
Yes, we plan to implement this soon.
What about lens corrections before exporting in lightroom, will that cause any issues with stacking, I am assuming it should not if evenly appied to all images that are exported.
Yes, correct.
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