Stacking software

[ingweDave]

I have just finished Steve's excellent image stacking tutorial. At the end of this week, I am off to the Scottish Highlands, for a week of landscape photography and itching to put the theory into practice I have no experience of using the software but from Steve's information, I am favouring Zerene. My question is, what is the difference between the personal edition and the prosumer? Is the "Personal" version good for most scenarios, or will I be left wishing I had spent double on the prosumer. I realise that it can be upgraded at any time.

 

[IainD]

I am a user of Helicon, the other focus stacking big name, so I don't know the answer to your question, but you could try the Personal version and see how it works. Keep your original images from the stacks, and if necessary, reprocess them with the improved version.
You can also stack in Photoshop if you have it. It does a decent job. Not quite as polished as Helicon, in my hands, and Zerene will be similar, I believe.
What I mean is, try the light version, and when you get home play around and see which suits your needs better!
Iain

 

[Steve]

Here's what Zerene says (it's tricky to find on their website). FWIW, I think I only used / demo'd the "personal" version features in the series.

Here is a full list of the features that require Prosumer Edition or Professional Edition. (We call these the “advanced Pro-only features” for short.)

Preserve all metadata, including EXIF, IPTC, and any Lightroom keywords that have been added by the photographer.
Lightroom plugin.
Use dust and hot pixels mask while stacking, to avoid defect trails.
Built-in capability for “slabbing”.
Option to honor image files' embedded color profiles in Zerene Stacker's own screen displays.
Ability to overlap I/O with computation for faster operation while stacking.
Ability to reduce the frequency of screen updates while stacking, for faster operation with deep stacks.
Additional brush types for retouching.
Multi-step undo when retouching.
Additional interpolators for improved handling of very sharp source images.
Integrated controller for the StackShot automated rail
Ability to ingest and stack images while they are being shot with a USB-connected camera.
When retouching, image brightness can be adjusted to facilitate working in unusually dark regions.
Aligned and brightness-corrected input images can be saved to external files.
Pixels from each source image that were incorporated into DMap output can be saved as image files.
Depth map from DMap can be saved as a TIFF file.

 

[ingweDave]

Thanks Steve. If you were only using the personal edition, that's good enough for me. I thought you may be using features that were not available on the personal

 

[Steve]

Thanks Steve. If you were only using the personal edition, that's good enough for me. I thought you may be using features that were not available on the personal

I do think that I kept to those features. However, I have to Pro version and it doesn't differentiate the various pro / personal features in an obvious way. So, although I'm like 95% sure what I covered was JUST what the personal edition has, there may be a minor thing I missed. Looking at the differences, the only one that gives me pause between the two is the multi-step undo - that it potentially nice to have.

 

[ingweDave]

I do think that I kept to those features. However, I have to Pro version and it doesn't differentiate the various pro / personal features in an obvious way. So, although I'm like 95% sure what I covered was JUST what the personal edition has, there may be a minor thing I missed. Looking at the differences, the only one that gives me pause between the two is the multi-step undo - that it potentially nice to have.

No problem, upgrade always available