Posted by John W. Wall on February 9, 2010 at 6:44 PM
I recently asked for comments on HF vs. CS4 and decided to do the obvious: I downloaded HF for the free trial and compared it to CS4 using the same sets of images.
For ease of use, HF wins hands-down. It comes as a plug-in for Lightroom, so I run it right from the RAW files. In CS4, you have to export the images, open them all, combine them into one image, align them, then stack them.
For quality of results, there is no difference. A problematic set of images for CS4 remained problematic for HF. A good set came out well in both programs.
A couple additional notes about focus-stacking: its purpose isn't always to obtain the greatest depth of field. One of the beauties of it is being able to get a 3D subject all sharp while retaining a soft background that looks like it was shot wide open. By using a wide aperture like f/5.6, you can run a stack through your main subject, but keep the background soft.
Also, if you are going for maximum DOF, a focus-stack will be sharper than an image shot at f/32. Even if your f/32 image appears to have picked up all the DOF you wanted, it will look slightly soft compared to a focus-stacked image shot at a smaller aperture.
I concur based on my results. I also might add, manual checking and a little judicious use of mask adjusting can ensure a more perfect result.
Posted by Wim Reyns on February 15, 2010 at 5:09 AM
One of the differences is though that CS4 eats a lot more RAM when processing these stacks.
so when working with bigger stacks 15+ img's i tend to favor HF. With smaller stacks i usually go with CS4 since you can do all of your other adjustments in one place
Discussion
2 repliesFor ease of use, HF wins hands-down. It comes as a plug-in for Lightroom, so I run it right from the RAW files. In CS4, you have to export the images, open them all, combine them into one image, align them, then stack them.
For quality of results, there is no difference. A problematic set of images for CS4 remained problematic for HF. A good set came out well in both programs.
A couple additional notes about focus-stacking: its purpose isn't always to obtain the greatest depth of field. One of the beauties of it is being able to get a 3D subject all sharp while retaining a soft background that looks like it was shot wide open. By using a wide aperture like f/5.6, you can run a stack through your main subject, but keep the background soft.
Also, if you are going for maximum DOF, a focus-stack will be sharper than an image shot at f/32. Even if your f/32 image appears to have picked up all the DOF you wanted, it will look slightly soft compared to a focus-stacked image shot at a smaller aperture.
so when working with bigger stacks 15+ img's i tend to favor HF. With smaller stacks i usually go with CS4 since you can do all of your other adjustments in one place
Wim