Stacking Software

A forum to ask questions, post setups, and generally discuss anything having to do with photomacrography and photomicroscopy.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

DrLazer
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Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:45 am

Stacking Software

Post by DrLazer »

Hello all,

This is my first post. I'm a Software Engineer from Sheffield UK. I recieved a superzoom for my birthday last september and became quite obsessive about learning as much as I could about photography. I didn't want to make no use of a great gift that a few of my friends had clubbed together to buy me. Especially as they had put in some good research to finding a suitable camera that would likely be the correct choice for a geek like me :)

I soon became very interested in Macro and got myself a Raynox DCR 250, a Nikon SB24 and a Flickr account. I follow Johnhallmens stream quite closely and find him a huge inspiration. I would love to have the ability and knowledge to create the kind of work he produces.

I have a Micro 4/3 camera on its way over from the states. I should imagine when I get paid I will be getting myself some nifty bellows too.

Anyway, all my stacking so far has been done with Photoshop CS5. I was hoping that someone on here would have good knowledge of other tools and could provide me with any information on what software works best in what situations and what advantages they have over CS5.

Here is my latest stack, only 8 exposures. If it helps with my question - in the future I should imagine I will be buying 10x maybe even 20x objectives.

Image

Full whammy version here.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5284/536 ... 7299_o.jpg

Thanks for any response in advance, it will be very much appreciated.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

DrLazer, welcome aboard! :D

Your image is lovely. It looks like CS5 has done a good job for you here. I can't tell for sure, but you might discover some details that CS5 missed, if you ran other software on the same stack. There is some discussion of this in "The Art of Focus Stacking: A Primer" by Michael Erlewine. That's an e-book available for free download at macrostop.com.

John Hallmén's work is superb -- an excellent source of both inspiration and information. He publishes a lot of stuff here at photomacrography.net as username 'morfa', most recently his Tiny Long Horned Beetle. I believe if you read carefully, you'll see that most of his recent stacks (the last year or so) have been done with Zerene Stacker. That makes sense because Zerene Stacker was designed specifically to handle the sort of challenging stacks that John likes to shoot.

Standard disclaimer: I'm the guy who wrote Zerene Stacker so I'm biased. On the other hand, I like to shoot the same kinds of stuff that John does, and the only reason I bothered to write ZS was because I got tired of trying to wrestle other packages into giving the quality I wanted.
If it helps with my question - in the future I should imagine I will be buying 10x maybe even 20x objectives.

Yes, this does help. Most stacking software works well with short crisp stacks like your flower. Deeper high magnification stacks are more challenging, and that's the regime where Zerene Stacker has its strongest advantages. Note that in addition to getting the objectives, you will also need some sort of high precision focusing rig to get steps in the range of 0.01 mm or even finer. See our FAQ: What's the best way to focus when stacking? for more information on that.

Hope this helps!

--Rik

Barry
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Post by Barry »

Hi DrLazer,

Except from Zerene Stacker or Helicon Focus, CombineZ is often used.
It is freeware and as a software engineer you may be interested in the macro ability etc. For me it gives excellent results.

Regards,
Barry

DrLazer
Posts: 293
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:45 am

Post by DrLazer »

Hey Rik,

Thanks for the information and links! Wow, looks like I have found the definitive forum here. I think I might see if I can get a physical copy of that book. I struggle to read from monitors for some bizzare reason.

Yeah I saw that beetle photograph on Flickr, 21MP too, it's outstanding.

You wrote Zerene stacker did you. How very impressive. Hopefully I can get some more info from you about how the algorithms work. I have used Zerene on trial before but found it a little confusing. I didn't really get the DMAX PMAX thing, and a few stacks I run were quite unsuccesfull. I must point out it was due to my own wrong doings and it wasn't a software fault. When I run my first ever stack I had the flash moving along with the rest of the rig - I barely understood exposure back then :)

I thought photoshop might struggle when I start stacking deeper. I think I might be good for now as the first rig i'll be trying will be a 50mm reversed on bellows, prob 1/2mm increments at the most.

I have eyed up linear stages and micrometers on ebay. However, it has become apparent I have no idea what I am looking at. So the plan for now is to stick with something like 4:1 on micro 4/3. I know I'll end up buying a load of stuff and building a rig though.

:P

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

DrLazer wrote:I didn't really get the DMAX PMAX thing, and a few stacks I run were quite unsuccesfull.
Trust me, you're in good company with those experiences. We've helped more than a few people get past the initial learning curve.

With Zerene Stacker, the standard recommendation is to stick with PMax until you learn how to shoot good stacks, then learn about DMap for subjects where that method gives a better result. That's because PMax has essentially no tunable parameters and will generate a pretty good result from any stack that is shot well. It sort of limits the space of what can go wrong, so you don't have to learn everything at once.

The art of shooting good stacks is the same for all software, so once you get that part mastered, you can decide which software to use based on the usual criteria of usability, output quality, cost, etc.

The issue of deep stacks is important, though. Photoshop can have pretty hard limits on stack depth due to its layers approach. All the others just take longer to run, in proportion to number of frames. Deep stacks also tend to produce worse problems with halo, particularly for bristly subjects. The two stacking methods provided by Helicon Focus have limited ability to deal with that problem. CombineZP includes a couple of methods that do well for bristly subjects. They're in there because before I wrote ZS I pointed Alan Hadley in the right direction and helped him understand how the methods work -- probably the worst business decision I ever made! :lol: His code is open-source, so you can actually go read the stuff if you want the gory details of his implementation. These days I tend to explain stacking methods in fairly general terms so as to avoid giving away any more of the farm. Anyway, CombineZP is a good flexible tool. The main issues there are user interface, especially for retouching, and higher end functions such as support for 16-bit images and synthetic stereo.

If you still have any of those unsuccessful stacks, I suggest posting out one or two results. Often we can recognize what went wrong and suggest what step to take next.

--Rik

Chris S.
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Post by Chris S. »

DrLazer,

Lovely image--especially nice job with the lighting.

Rik is modest when discussing Zerene Stacker in this forum, for reasons that are understandable (it's a non-commercial forum, and he is a forum administrator). But as a user with no affiliation, I can be a bit more enthusiastic in giving Zerene Stacker a strong recommendation.

Before ZS was available, I used CombineZM and Combine ZP (free software capable of producing good output, but with a poor user interface, little retouching capability, and clunky function in my workflow). I briefly tried Tufuse Pro and Helicon Focus (yuck--what horrible results in my test stacks). I have Photoshop CS5, and briefly tried its focus stacking (found it ridiculously limited).

When Rik introduced Zerene Stacker, I tried it and have not cared to stack with anything else ever since. It is very definitely worth its modest cost. If you want top quality output, a useful interface, strong retouching capability, ability to run deep stacks on difficult subjects, and great support, look no further.

I'd also note that Rik is very actively continuing development of ZS. I expect focus stacking software to get even better as time goes by, and Zerene Stacker is my bet for the program most likely to stay at the head of the pack. One of the capabilities Zerene Stacker will have (and already does, in beta) is that of running a StackShot stepping system such as I have integrated into my rig, as illustrated here. (Not that you need to build your own rig to get this capability--most StackShot users do fine with the mechanical setup normally provided with the StackShot controller.) As someone who has done limited beta testing of this feature in Zerene Stacker, I believe this is going to be a very welcome addition.

Incidentally, many of my stacks are around 850-1100 images, and some of my subjects are very confusing. I rarely post them, as at present, most of my work is done under non-disclosure agreements.

Cheers,

--Chris

PS--Welcome to the forum!

Toby
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Post by Toby »

if you have a Mac you will probably have to use Helicon.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Zerene Stacker runs natively on Mac also, as well as Linux.

--Rik

DrLazer
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Post by DrLazer »

Well I will certainly be getting the trial at the very minimum, most of my gear has arrived now :). If it fairs better I will purchase a license. In trial mode, does it watermark the image?

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

No ;)

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Its a nice shot, some lovely texture in there...

(Oh and another happy Zerene user here!)

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