Helicon Focus purchase/registration question(s)

[Kerry]

At the suggestion of Tom Webster, I'm posting these questions here (I hope I selected the right forum):

I posted a version of what follows on the Helicon forum, but there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of traffic there and some of the responses are awfully elliptical, so I thought I'd post this here as well and see if any of the Helicon Focus users who frequent this forum can be of assistance.

I recently downloaded and installed the most recent version of Helicon Focus to use on a trial basis and am impressed with the software's performance. I'm interested in purchasing a license, but I'm a bit confused about what the license entails and the registration process.

Am I correct in assuming that the "one-year" license purchase means that, after one year, the software no longer becomes fully functional? This would be a bit unusual, but based on what I've read, it's my impression that the one-year license purchase essentially extends the trial period for 365 days. Is that correct? If so, it would seem that the lifetime license would be the way to go.

My question about registration is this: I have the program installed on a computer that is NOT connected to the Internet. (I do all my image editing work on a computer that I have deliberately kept untethered to the Net to be certain there's no chance of infection.) Is registering the software doable by generating a key manually (by entering the "workstation ID") and manually copying the four lines of the key into the appropriate part of the registration key dialog?

Many thanks.

[rjlittlefield]

Kerry,

Regarding registration, I think the procedure you describe will work OK. My notes from 5 July 2006 indicate that I had some trouble getting through registration at all, due to my misunderstanding some quirks in their web interface. But when all was done, the registration key came back embedded in a text field of a web page, followed by these instructions:

Please copy this key to clipboard and paste it to the Registration dialog of your Helicon Focus
program (Helicon Focus Menu -> Help -> Registration).

I saved that page, just in case I ever need to reinstall my O/S and all applications.

What happens when a one year license ends, I don't know. The web page containing the key was pretty explicit that the key expires on 5 July 2007, but it doesn't say what happens then.

Whether the unlimited or one-year license is best probably depends on several issues. Unlimited costs almost 4 times as much as one year, so the quality of your crystal ball matters. (I don't trust mine very much. ) If you want the multiprocessor version, you don't have any choice because that's offered only under unlimited license. If multiprocessor is not important, maybe it makes sense to go for one year on the Pro version and see if you use any of the features that distinguish Pro from Lite.

Hope this helps,
--Rik

[Kerry]

Rik:

Thanks for the reply; I appreciate it. Thanks for the information about registration.

I've been told by someone who apparently e-mailed the developer with the same licensing question that I posed that the one-year license means that, without a repurchase, after 365 days the software acts as it does when the 25-day trial period ends--it reverts to a (far) less than fully functional program--less than fully functional to the point of being unusable.

I honestly don't see the value of the one-year approach from the point of view of the consumer--it's basically paying for the right to have a one-year trial. The "lifetime" license amounts to what is a normal software purchase policy with the additional benefit of a guarantee of perpetual upgrades. The only issue is the cost.

I'm not, primarily, a macro photographer. About 95% of my photography is of the landscape variety. Virtually all of the remaining 5% is outdoor closeup work. I basically have to decide if the $115 cost of the "lite" version of the software (I can't see springing for the pro version) is worth it to me. I must admit that I have been very, very impressed with the results based on the handful of shots I've put together with the trial version of the software. I haven't even tried using it for landscape work yet--which might make that $115 price seem more palatable. If for some reason I felt the need to move up to the pro version from the lite edition I see that there's an upgrade option that essentially applies the full purchase price of the lite version to the pro version.

As I mused above, I guess it really comes down to whether or not I feel that the lifetime license price is worth it or not.

[Charles Krebs]

Kerry,

I also do a large amount of photo editing on a computer dedicated for that purpose and it does not have an internet connection. It is no problem to register a computer that has no internet access once the program is installed and a "Workstation ID" is generated. (Of course you need to access to the Helicon site from a computer with web access to input the Workstation ID and then generate the registration key).

Charlie

[rjlittlefield]

Kerry,

Regarding one year vs unlimited, it may be that Helicon has changed their pricing model. They used to advertise an upgrade path such that after you paid the one-year license fee 4 times, the license simply converted to unlimited. The total cost was not much different either way and some of the risks were lower, doing it year-by-year. On quick scan of the current Helicon pages, I don't see that path described anymore. I don't know whether that means that it's gone, or they're just not pushing it.

--Rik

[Kerry]

I also do a large amount of photo editing on a computer dedicated for that purpose and it does not have an internet connection. It is no problem to register a computer that has no internet access once the program is installed and a "Workstation ID" is generated. (Of course you need to access to the Helicon site from a computer with web access to input the Workstation ID and then generate the registration key).

Charlie, thanks very much for this information--it's just what I needed to know.

[Kerry]

Regarding one year vs unlimited, it may be that Helicon has changed their pricing model. They used to advertise an upgrade path such that after you paid the one-year license fee 4 times, the license simply converted to unlimited. The total cost was not much different either way and some of the risks were lower, doing it year-by-year. On quick scan of the current Helicon pages, I don't see that path described anymore. I don't know whether that means that it's gone, or they're just not pushing it.

Rik:

There's no mention of this on the Helicon site and in an admittedly rather cryptic reply on the Helicon forum, the developer alluded to no such thing. I have to assume that this upgrade path--which I concede would make the annual license scheme infinitely more attractive than it presently appears to be--no longer exists.

[Danny]

Charles and Rik. This was mentioned on NSN as well by Tom, so I'll bring it up here as well. What are the benefits of Helicon Focus vs CombineZ ?? Just out of interest.

I know you both have used them, so thoughts.

All the best.

Danny.

[Charles Krebs]

Danny,

Rik has really looked "under the hood" of these programs more than I, so he can probably comment better on the programming involved and the somewhat different approach taken by the authors of these programs.

My approach has been solely practical. When I began to explore extended DOF via this type of software, I shot a variety of image "stacks" as carefully as possible using lighting and subjects I like. Then I ran the stacks through every program I could find that provided this function. (There are actually quite a few). I quickly narrowed my choices down to Helicon Focus and Auto-Montage. Auto-Montage is a quite sophisticated program with some features not available in Helicon Focus, but it is very expensive. Frankly, all I wanted was the program that provided the best final image. The additional features of some of the very expensive programs costing $1000 and up (such as 3D, depth maps, and control of automated z-steppers) may be critical for some researchers, but are of no real use to me.

For my needs -- best results when combining a z-stack into a single image-- Helicon Focus actually did the best job overall, and considering the prices of the other competent programs I considered it a bargain!

With most stacks there will be some "clean-up" editing required with all these programs. As with all the others, Helicon was not perfect, but it consistently output images that were superior, and required less work to finish off.

I have not mentioned CombineZ up to now because when I did my initial comparisons CombineZ did not do that well. But Alan Hadley, the CombineZ author, subsequently made some major improvements and the program performed much better. Of course, it is available at no cost, a very big "plus" for many! After the large improvement in CombineZ I ran many comparisons between it and Helicon. For my type of shots, I find that Helicon seems to do a better job more often, but not every time. I will confess that there is quite a bit you can do to tweak the parameters in CombineZ at which I am not extremely proficient. So it is possible that I could obtain better performance from CombineZ with some additional effort. (Rik may want to add some thoughts on this... he is pretty savvy with CombineZ).

I keep both Helicon Focus and CombineZ on my computer. There have actually been occasions where I have "manually" combined part of the output from each program to make a single image. But with the latest version of HF (4.16), I use Helicon nearly all the time unless I get some funky result, and then I will see what CombineZ will do with it.

Helicon will "run" a stack much faster than CombineZ, but I don't find the time needed for CombineZ to be a "deal killer".

After a while, you develop a sense about what stacks will work well, and what images will be really tough to pull off. In some cases altering the angle of the subject, or the background can make a big difference between an image that stacks well, and one that is a nightmare to finish off. Many "defects" that appear are not really the fault of the software, but the nature of shooting a stack with very shallow DOF where objects inevitably grow larger and fuzzier as the come into and out of focus.

[Danny]

Thanks Charlie. Very interesting. I've played with CombineZ a few times but not much use to what I shoot outdoors unfortunately.

So when you use Helicon Focus, how do you deal with noise. Can this be controlled somewhat with the software or do you run noise software outside of Helicon Focus. Does using multiple images and I know you use way above what most would consider normal , do you find that noise gets added with the more images you stack ??.

Funny I've never asked this before Charles, I'm getting really interested now M8t. Fascinating when we see what you can do with it, thats for sure

Thanks Charles and Rik.

Danny.

[Charles Krebs]

Danny,

There actually seems to be less noise in the final stacked image than in the individual images.

But I try to shoot in a way that keeps noise levels pretty low. If there are very high noise levels the results might be different.

[rjlittlefield]

Danny & Charlie,

Here is my cut at a quick summary of Helicon Focus (HF) (4.03) versus CombineZ5(5.2)/CombineZM (CZ).

• HF is faster and has a simpler, more polished user interface; CZ has a tinker-friendly design that includes numerous options and smaller commands that can be combined in various ways.
• HF can auto-align for scale, shift, and rotate; CZ only does scale and shift.
• HF generally does better with overlapping detail (spines, hair).
• HF generally does better with transparent surfaces and volumetric subjects where there is sharp detail at more than one depth.
• CZ can sometimes be set to do better than HF with halo against dark backgrounds.
• HF tends to turn noisy low contrast regions into smooth mush; CZ tends to turn the same regions into noisy mush; neither one works as well as you'd think it ought to.
• For combining, HF apparently has one method, which works well in most common circumstances; CZ has two methods, both different from HF's, that work better in some other circumstances.

As for what goes on "under the hood", my knowledge is limited too. HF is "black box software" -- it does whatever it does, and the license agreement precludes trying to look inside. Everything I know about HF is an educated guess based on observing the results it produces. CZ is open source, so in principle it's possible to know everything about how it works. In practice, CZ is large enough that I've never bothered to actually look at the source code. What I know about CZ is based partly on documentation, partly on inference, and partly on conversations with Alan Hadley.

My strategy these days is not much different from Charlie's -- run HF and if the result will look good with a modest amount of manual tweaking, then just do that. That's been true since HF 4.03, which is what I'm still using because I've been too lazy to download the later versions based on Helicon's rather sparse list of new features. (Charlie, any hints about what I've been missing?)

--Rik

[Charles Krebs]

Rik,

I had some "bug" manifestations with the version of 4.XX I was using before the current 4.16. (I think it was 4.10). No problems with 4.16.

Does 4.03 have the "Queue" feature? I find I use that more and more... letting it automatically run several different parameter combinations while I do something else. Then I choose the best result.

[rjlittlefield]

4.03 does not have Queue. That sounds like a good reason to upgrade.

--Rik