Focus stacking

[Ty13]

Hi.

I've been wanting to try some focus stacking software, who has used what whether it be free or paid?

I don't really want to go down the paid subscription with PS so I was thinking Helicon Focus.

Thoughts?

[richtbw]

I've used ON1 Photo Raw 2019.6 focus stacking facility with great success. Not free though.

[Mary Anne]

See if CombineZP is still around it was a freebie I used to play around with it a few years back.

[nardes]

I have used Helicon Focus although I have purchased a licence so it probably has more functionality than a free version.

I have found it works extremely well, but I have always used it tripod mounted with a focusing rail so the input frames have been aligned in the field as it were.

Cheers

Dennis

[ameerat42]

Purely as another method, there's photo-stacking in GIMP. I can't even remember if I ever tried it...
This video shows how (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hNs-xMWi0). Note that GIMP is now at version 2.10.12.