Helicon Focus
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| Helicon Focus | |
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 Helicon Focus 4.10 Running on Windows XP |
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| Developer: | Helicon Soft Ltd. |
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| Latest release: | 4.10.2 / March 8, 2007 |
| OS: | Mac OS X, Windows |
| Use: | Digital image processing |
| License: | Proprietary |
| Website: | www.heliconfocus.com |
Helicon Focus, or more simply Focus, is a proprietary commercial digital image processing tool, first released in 2003, developed and published by Helicon Soft Limited. Like programs such as CombineZM, Helicon Focus is designed to blend the focused areas of several partially focused digital photographs in order to increase the depth of field (DOF) possible in an image.
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[edit] Overview
Helicon Focus can be used to increase DOF in any situation, though its primary uses are in macro photography, landscape photography and photo-microscopy. In macro photography, the DOF is often very small. In order to increase it, Helicon Focus is capable of merging several differently focused images together in order to create one image where the subject is entirely in focus. In landscape photography, where the entire frame is often preferred to be in focus (such as distant clouds and an object of interest in the foreground), Focus can be used to blend photos together in order to create a desired result.
[edit] Designers
Danylo Kozub, Ph.D. in Economics, is the chief project administrator at Helicon Soft. He and Vitaly V. Khmelik create updates for Helicon Focus every several months.
[edit] Licenses
There are different license types for Helicon Focus.
Helicon Focus Lite does not contain retouch features and is $30 (USD) for a one year license and $115 for an unlimited update license.
Helicon Focus Pro does include retouching features and is $70 for a one year license and $250 for an unlimited update license.
Helicon Focus Pro (MP) (multiprocessor support) yields a 40% to 50% increase in speed for every extra processor and $300 for an unlimited license.
[edit] Features
- Automatic adjustments during stacking
- "Dust map" for removing black points from the resulting images
- Supports most common file types, including RAW, TIFF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, and BMP
- Can add text and a scale bar
- (In Pro) Retouch brushes to manually brush in any focused (or unfocused) areas that weren't merged properly
- Create image stack animations
- Batch processing
[edit] See also
[edit] External Links
Filter • Focus • TeamIntegrator
