Ultimate Sharpness

I just used Photoshop, but there are lots of things that do a better job with stitching (Photoshop does focus stacking too, but it's not very good at it).

When MsMayaNV asked about the Directors, this old thread popped up and I realized I left it at finding Helicon Focus with promise of showing results. Well, pretty much everything I've done lately has been with Helicon, and I cannot be more enthusiastic with my praise of the program. I've been using it for all my stacking work, and for the recent 3D projects I've embarked on. Superb program, though I had to be careful with versions to make sure it would work with my ancient WinXPSP3 workstation.

My biggest complaint with CZP was that it over-sharpened the final image. Well, it also does not crop the extra pixels it adds to the edges to avoid aliasing. Helicon adds no detectable added sharpness, and gives back an image the same size as the originals!

Here is an image that I believe says it all regarding Helicon's 2D capabilities:



I'm still working on 3D, and in fact am trying to figure out the best way to do a 3D animation using Helicon's capabilities. Helicon has animation output, but it doesn't seem to be webpage compatible.

If I can remember about this thread, I will post an animation here once I figure out the best way to do one...