Digital Camera World (2019-06)

HEAD TO HEAD

82 DIGITAL CAMERA^ JUNE 2019 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com

What does

it do?

What is the

range of

features?

Are the

results good?

Is it worth

the price?

Verdict

The Helicon Focus licence schemes are

quite complex. The lifetime licence for the

Premium edition costs many times the price

of Affinity Photo, while the one-year Pro

licence costs about the same. It could

be worth it if you need advanced tools.

A more expensive focus-stacking choice,

but with more potential for experts

Helicon Focus was a little faster than Affinity

Photo in our tests. The retouching process

is simpler because it’s easier to identify the

‘sharp’ layer to use as your cloning source.

It was not 100% foolproof, though, and it

did produce occasional blurred edges.

Helicon Focus works in the same way as

Affinity Photo, automatically merging

images with different focus points, but offers

three rendering methods, the option to save

an animation or 3D render, and live layer

identification for quicker retouching.

Helicon Focus is a standalone application

dedicated to focus-stacking. HeliconSoft has

branched out into 3D rendering and focus-

stacking hardware, via extension tubes for

Canon and Nikon DSLRs and remote control

software to automate the capture process.

If you simply want to experiment with

focus-stacking, Affinity Photo is easily good

enough. The results are good and can be

retouched relatively easily. The only reason

for spending more on Helicon Focus is if

focus-stacking is a big part of your work.

Simple but effective – and retouching

is relatively straightforward, too

In our tests, Affinity Photo and Helicon Focus

produced very similar results. Both did an

excellent job overall but produced some blur

around some object edges that would need

retouching later (although not always

in the same place, interestingly).

Focus-stacking in Affinity Photo is

straightforward: you cue up the photos, and

the software merges them automatically.

You can switch between the merged view

and individual layered images to carry out

easy cloning/retouching in blurred areas.

Affinity Photo is a photo editing application

covering the same wide range of image-

editing functions as Photoshop. Its focus-

stacking tool merges a series of photos

taken at different focus points into a single

image that’s sharp from front to back.

4.0 Excellent

Serif

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ɎȒȒǼژȅƏɎƬǝژƳƺƳǣƬƏɎƺƳɀȒǔɎɯƏȸƺّ

£48.99/$49.99 affinity.serif.com

Helicon

IȒƬɖɀ

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ɀȵƺƬǣƏǼǣɀɎژǔȒƬɖɀٮɀɎƏƬǸǣȇǕɎȒȒǼɀّ

$30-240 heliconsoft.com

VS

4.0 Excellent

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