stacking software

[jimmer]

Hello everone just a question about stacking software, er which one is everyone using please and is Adobe any good for stacking. Also could I use astronomy stacking software to do the same thing I would like all comments please regards Jim

[Jim Ford]

I've tried CombineZM and it seems to work OK. There's a fairly recent thread on stacking that you might like to check out:

Problems with image stacking

I'm continuing to work on the stacking rail that I mentioned in the above thread and it's not too far from completion (the one shown in the Gallery is a very rough prototype).

I've been pondering stacking software and wondered whether there's any sacrifice in image quality - fine detail lost etc.. Does anyone have experience or an opinion on this?

Jim

[Ditiola]

Hi

I use 'Combine ZM' (free to download) I find it works very well and is simple to use, believe there are now other versions but not sure if they are any improvement?

It does not produce perfect results every time, but I suspect that no software gets it right 100% of the time!

I have been told I have the facility in Photoshop but I have not yet found it!

I will find some examples from Combine ZM and post them here

Peter

[Ditiola]

I have no problems running Combine ZM on Windows 7. I seem to recall that when I initially loaded it up you can change the amount of RAM the software uses to do the stacking. The default setting was very low sow I changed it to 1 GB

I read somewhere that some folk had had problems upgrading their Combine ZM to a newer version so I have not bothered.

Peter

[FungiJohn]

After using all the free versions and trial version of Helicon focus I settled on CS5

Here are a few examples









This last image was produced using Helicon Focus



The excellent but obviously expensive feature of CS5 is the 'content awareness' function which ensures the full image size is preserved

John

[Lancashire Lad]

You haven't actually said what your intended subjects would be (But presumably fungi?).

Many of my fungi shots are stacked, and I too use CombineZM - with all settings left at default, and am completely satisfied with the results.
My stacks so far, vary between two to thirty shots, dependent on depth of focus required and overall subject size.

Some recent shots below - all taken in ambient daylight, keeping the camera/lens unmoved (on tripod), and just manually refocussing the lens between each shot in the stack.
(Exposure information and number of images for each photo are shown in camera details below each of the photos).





Can't advise whether astronomical stacking software or Adobe would be any better, but I personally haven't yet seen anything that would entice me away from CombineZM. (Freely downloadable shareware).

Regards,
Mike.

[pressld2]

I'm chiefly using CombineZP. John showed me how to do it using Photoshop CS5 so I've been playing with that too.

CombineZP is still free, works fine under Vista and Windows 7 (including the 64 bit versions) and offers six different stacking algorithms. From memory these are stack, soft stack, pyramid stack, pyramid maximum contrast, weighted average and pyramid weighted average. There's a macro that will run all six in sequence and let you choose which output you prefer. Generally it's either stack or pyramid stack but occasionally one of the others will be better.

The one downside I have found to CombineZP is that it can be difficult to do something else on my computer while the stacking macro is running. Even with it configured to run minimised it sometimes switches away from my current window and back onto CombineZP whenever it outputs anything. This seems to be a bit less of a problem since I upgraded to Windows 7 and reinstalled everything.

The more images you are stacking the longer the process will take. And that's true whatever software you are using.

Dave P.

[Ditiola]

Here are 3 of my stacks with Combine ZM

3 stack





6 stack




7 Stack




Peter

[Ditiola]

For the close macro shot like the 7 stack Bisporella above I do not focus with the lens, I move the whole camera and lens nearer the subject on a stand I made from a Black-and-Decker drill stand.

Peter

[jimmer]

Thank you all for your help I will try a free programme and hope it is easy to use and post some results. Thank you.