Lightning fast stacking is a great way to start, but for virtually every high magnification stack, unless you also have a top notch retouching functionality, and everything that supports retouching, like slabbing and selective stacking, the tool is not going to get the job finished.

And I think that is a serious problem for Helicon. Because I could have all the experience in the world and it is not going to make up for the fact that there are some things this otherwise great program just cannot do. But my lack of experience with HeliconвЂ™s retouching is only part of the story. I feel like I know both of these programs very well indeed, though I have to admit I have plenty of work to do in HeliconвЂ™s retouching environment. Well that was day one, and I have taken a lot of photographs since then. In fact, I was so surprised on the first shooting day of this project, that when I saw the speed with which Helicon ripped through stacks and saw the quality of the initial few batches of simple stacks, I immediately called my friend Mike, another Zerene guy but several time zones to my left, and yelled down the line, вЂњMike, Just saw the first few outputs from this Helicon stacking software and it is nothing like what I was expecting.вЂќ He responded by muttering something that might have been a friendly вЂњcheerioвЂќ, but which sounded more like an unambiguous death threat, before hanging up on me, as he does every time I call at 3AM. This is the kind of healthy competition that keeps everyone on their toes. That is good for us and it is good for Zerene.

Helicon has come a long way since I first tried it out. So, I was surprised but excited to see that there was some serious competition, after all. That was quite some time ago and there werenвЂ™t that many people that I knew using anything but Zerene. That was, after all, why I chose Zerene Stacker as my stacking software when it was time for me to get serious about my work. I came into it expecting to find Zerene a better product in every way. This has been a long but enjoyable process.

Focus stacking software review