Stacking - Zerene V Photoshop

[mjmountain]

Acquired a cheap macro rail today so had my first go at stacking, then processed the images in both photoshop and Zerene. Zerene was much quicker (but was using jpegs). Here's the output. (32 layer stack)

Zerene Pmax stack
2017-09-14-23.04.45 ZS PMax by mike mountain, on Flickr

PS stack
PS stack by mike mountain, on Flickr

Now I did the Zerene on Jpegs from unprocessed RAW files. The PS was done from lightroom directly on unprocessed RAW files. PS took A LOT longer to process the images. I think Zerene did a far better job.

M

 

[GardenersHelper]

I think Zerene did a far better job.

Definitely. In fact I'd say that PS made a bit of a mess of it (I'm looking at the multiple examples of duplicated fragments, most obviously with the threads.)

 

[mjmountain]

I wonder if I need to run the align layers tool first in Photoshop. I had assumed it would do that automatically as part of the blend. If that's the case it'll take all night.

Zerene is great but given I already have Photoshop I really didn't want to shell out any cash. Any other decent options?

 

[GardenersHelper]

I wonder if I need to run the align layers tool first in Photoshop. I had assumed it would do that automatically as part of the blend. If that's the case it'll take all night.

Zerene is great but given I already have Photoshop I really didn't want to shell out any cash. Any other decent options?

CombineZP is free, but not as good as Zerene as I recall. I don't think it has retouching facilities, which can matter IMO (see links below). That said, some people are very happy with what they get from it. As with all this software, you'd need to try it to see what you think of it.

I prefer single shots for what I do but I have experimented with stacking. I found I preferred Helicon Focus to Zerene Stacker. I have written about my stacking experience, mainly with Helicon Focus, here at dpreview. You might also want to look at this post at dpreview, and possibly the rest of the thread it is in. In terms of what sort of quality you can get with plants you might want to look at this post at dpreview, and possibly the rest of the thread it is in.

Zerene and Helicon Focus are both quite expensive. Exactly how expensive depends on which version you get.

 

[Orangecroc]

I'm interested in what the image is of! It's one of those where the magnification has made it unrecognisable to me.

 

[mjmountain]

I'm interested in what the image is of! It's one of those where the magnification has made it unrecognisable to me.

It's some sort of dried flower - like a little fuzzy golf ball.