Helicon is a great product. But it is an extra piece of software to pay for. To my amazement I found out that the Focus merge function in Affinity Photo also works really well. The automatic blend-render is very accurate, if there’s no movement in the scene. Also, alignment of the layers are done automatically, all in one go. It got a very simple, yet useful way of finding and cloning from the right layer, if it’s needed. And for those of us that are using Affinity in our normal workflow anyway, it is a pleasant surprise to have this function working so well and is incorporated in our normal workspace as well.
Been using Helicon Focus for a while now and it just seems to be unlimited in what it’s capable of stacking seamlessly. Tech support is also very quick and informative.
Great video. I've only recently started out using focus stacking and have much to learn. Helicon looks very interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing your future videos. Thank you, Michael.
Helicon Focus is excellent - I use it for all my product photography work - typically things like watches and sunglasses where you cannot get the whole object in focus even if you stop down to the lens's smallest aperture. I am usually shooting them on a white background so the image is quite simple for Helicon Focus to deal with - none of the complicated backgrounds you have to work with!
I'm new at product photography and I'm looking at doing the same thing, however I do not know the workflow. If I stack the photos before can I manipulate colors of a .tiff file after as helicon focus only exports .tiff and not raw? This is my main concern. My client has been established for quite some time so I have the manipulate the colors to match the existing ones of the brand.
@@matcut1 I do the stacking with the JPEGs after I have adjusted the RAWs in Lightroom and exported them. With products the lighting conditions are going to be fixed so you can usually adjust the first image in a set and then copy and paste the settings to the others. Yes you could tweak a TIFF file, same as you can a JPEG to some extent, but not to the same degree as working with RAW files. But again, with product photography (unlike Michael's landscapes!) you have control of the lighting, so stacking exported RAWs seems the easiest way to go IMHO.
@@matcut1 Are your retouchers doing basic exposure and colour adjustments as well? Why not do those yourself if you don't already - shouldn't be much to do if you are shooting products as I mentioned above - then export to JPEG, stack in Helicon, and have the retouchers give a polish to the final JPEG.
Ich habe das neulich auch mal ausprobiert. aber was mich wundert, ist dass wenn man die Kamera oder das Stativ minimal bewegt hat, die Bilder nicht automatisch aligned werden, irgendwie stört mich das extrem, denn ich habe immer irgendwelche Kanten die nicht übereinander gehen. Aber ich muss auch mal weiter testen. 😀
Hi Michael, thanks for the video! I was wondering how the photo's are aligned when you use Helicon plugin directly from Lr? Normally it happens in Ps... I make some handheld stacks sometimes and if I import them in Helicon it's a mess 🙂 I'm not sure how to export them (already aligned in Ps) to Helicon, it doesn't seem to copy the "aligning" from Ps...
Hello Wouter, for my landscape photos, the alignment in Helicon works better than in PS most of the time. When I import from LR, the images are automatically aligned during rendering. In settings I can fine tune how the alignment is performed. If you have large differences between the individual photos, you might have to tune the settings because the default settings might be too restrictive and not allow enough shifting and rotation. If you wanted to do the alignment in PS, then you'd have to save the photos for each layer as tiff from PS and then import to Helicon, because as far as I know there's no Photoshop Plugin and also layered tiffs or PSDs don't work.
Hi, I just started to use my Helicon Focus and it seems very laggy, I currently use MacStudio with M1 Ultra chip. Editing but seems very slow, not like in your video where workflow is very smooth. I’m currently on 30day trial , but would that affect the speed?
Hi, mine is smooth and as far as I know the Trial is Same Speed as full Version. Best ask helicon If there might be a setting you can try. Also compare dng vs tiff Workflow! Maybe that makes Difference
I decided to first test helicon because its so fast, has a good interface and integrates well with LR. From what I read Zerene might be the more technical program that for complicated macro stacks gives more control (due to Allan Walls). If Helicon woulnt have satisfied my expectations, I would have also tested Zerene. But I have yet to encounter a stack where Helicon does not deliver. And lack of time currently prevents me from getting into very detailed comparisons between the two. I would guess for Landscape stacks there wouldnt be much difference. Do you have experience with Zerene?
Great introduction to Helicon. Thanks ! You say that the result is a dng file. Are You sure ? Or is it a tiff embedded within a dng ? You could look at the file-size of the resulting dng compared to one of the original dng´s. If it really is a dng it should be about the same size.
Helicon is a great product. But it is an extra piece of software to pay for. To my amazement I found out that the Focus merge function in Affinity Photo also works really well. The automatic blend-render is very accurate, if there’s no movement in the scene. Also, alignment of the layers are done automatically, all in one go. It got a very simple, yet useful way of finding and cloning from the right layer, if it’s needed. And for those of us that are using Affinity in our normal workflow anyway, it is a pleasant surprise to have this function working so well and is incorporated in our normal workspace as well.
Magic Lattern for Canon cameras ( HDR staking photos ) + Helion focus = WOW. Try such solution.
Havent tried it. Guess i should check it out. Cheers
Been using Helicon Focus for a while now and it just seems to be unlimited in what it’s capable of stacking seamlessly. Tech support is also very quick and informative.
Many thanks Michael, other videos with Helicon could be interesting !
I really like your video. Keep it up. I will try this and let you know. Thank you for this. 👍
Great video. I've only recently started out using focus stacking and have much to learn. Helicon looks very interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing your future videos. Thank you, Michael.
Helicon Focus is excellent - I use it for all my product photography work - typically things like watches and sunglasses where you cannot get the whole object in focus even if you stop down to the lens's smallest aperture. I am usually shooting them on a white background so the image is quite simple for Helicon Focus to deal with - none of the complicated backgrounds you have to work with!
I'm new at product photography and I'm looking at doing the same thing, however I do not know the workflow. If I stack the photos before can I manipulate colors of a .tiff file after as helicon focus only exports .tiff and not raw? This is my main concern. My client has been established for quite some time so I have the manipulate the colors to match the existing ones of the brand.
@@matcut1 I do the stacking with the JPEGs after I have adjusted the RAWs in Lightroom and exported them. With products the lighting conditions are going to be fixed so you can usually adjust the first image in a set and then copy and paste the settings to the others. Yes you could tweak a TIFF file, same as you can a JPEG to some extent, but not to the same degree as working with RAW files. But again, with product photography (unlike Michael's landscapes!) you have control of the lighting, so stacking exported RAWs seems the easiest way to go IMHO.
@@ChrisMannphoto I need the stacking to be done first and then I was going to pass on the photos to a retoucher, that my main issue.
@@matcut1 Are your retouchers doing basic exposure and colour adjustments as well? Why not do those yourself if you don't already - shouldn't be much to do if you are shooting products as I mentioned above - then export to JPEG, stack in Helicon, and have the retouchers give a polish to the final JPEG.
Hi Michael, thank you so much! 🙂
Have you ever tried Focus Stacking function in Luminar?
What do you think when compare to Helicon Focus?
I currently dont use luminar. Maybe I get a Demo for testing someday
Ich habe das neulich auch mal ausprobiert. aber was mich wundert, ist dass wenn man die Kamera oder das Stativ minimal bewegt hat, die Bilder nicht automatisch aligned werden, irgendwie stört mich das extrem, denn ich habe immer irgendwelche Kanten die nicht übereinander gehen. Aber ich muss auch mal weiter testen. 😀
Normal wird ausgerichtet. Kann man in den Settings auch tunen, wie weit.
😀Very good video. Thank you!
Hi Michael, thanks for the video! I was wondering how the photo's are aligned when you use Helicon plugin directly from Lr? Normally it happens in Ps... I make some handheld stacks sometimes and if I import them in Helicon it's a mess 🙂 I'm not sure how to export them (already aligned in Ps) to Helicon, it doesn't seem to copy the "aligning" from Ps...
Hello Wouter, for my landscape photos, the alignment in Helicon works better than in PS most of the time. When I import from LR, the images are automatically aligned during rendering. In settings I can fine tune how the alignment is performed. If you have large differences between the individual photos, you might have to tune the settings because the default settings might be too restrictive and not allow enough shifting and rotation.
If you wanted to do the alignment in PS, then you'd have to save the photos for each layer as tiff from PS and then import to Helicon, because as far as I know there's no Photoshop Plugin and also layered tiffs or PSDs don't work.
Hi, I just started to use my Helicon Focus and it seems very laggy, I currently use MacStudio with M1 Ultra chip. Editing but seems very slow, not like in your video where workflow is very smooth. I’m currently on 30day trial , but would that affect the speed?
Hi, mine is smooth and as far as I know the Trial is Same Speed as full Version. Best ask helicon If there might be a setting you can try. Also compare dng vs tiff Workflow! Maybe that makes Difference
I tried, no change, I’ll guess I’ll reach out to them and see what they say.
Have you described anywhere how to use the R5 automatic focus stacking? I have fiddled a little but do not yet understand how best to use it.
fstoppers.com/photoshop/how-handheld-focus-stacking-works-593905
@@mibreit-photo Woot! Woot! Thank you *very* much.
I don't generally use DNG files. Is it possible to use Helicon but avoid DNG files?
Convert to 16bit tiff before the stacking. You need to finish your RAW editing First then. PS I never had Problems with dng, give it a try ;-)
@@mibreit-photo I will. Thanks.
Did you consider Zerene stacker when choosing Helicon focus, if so what was the deciding factor in favour of Helicon?
I decided to first test helicon because its so fast, has a good interface and integrates well with LR. From what I read Zerene might be the more technical program that for complicated macro stacks gives more control (due to Allan Walls). If Helicon woulnt have satisfied my expectations, I would have also tested Zerene. But I have yet to encounter a stack where Helicon does not deliver. And lack of time currently prevents me from getting into very detailed comparisons between the two. I would guess for Landscape stacks there wouldnt be much difference. Do you have experience with Zerene?
Also: www.heliconsoft.com/raw-in-dng-out/
Great introduction to Helicon. Thanks !
You say that the result is a dng file. Are You sure ? Or is it a tiff embedded within a dng ?
You could look at the file-size of the resulting dng compared to one of the original dng´s.
If it really is a dng it should be about the same size.
It's indeed a dng. But only If you feed it dngs. They have some docu on this on their homepage.
@@mibreit-photo Thanks!
I use both Photoshop and helicon Focus but i find out that even Photoshop is messes up stacking still produce sharped results then helicon Focus..
Maybe Experiment with Radius setting. I found my results pretty Sharp. Also make sure to use latest Version
Please cut out the annoying background music
Possible meesed Up the levels a Bit, dont have a Headset on my travels