Focus Stacking
Not currently planned
I know this has made the rounds on this forum over the years, but I'd just like to add a fresh request.
May we please have a fully integrated focus stacking tool?
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Official comment
Thank You for Your request.
Can You elaborate on how you apply the Focus Stacking in your photography? Please include details on your current workflow, how it could be improved, and also what works well in the Focus Stacking workflow You are using right now.
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+1. Focus Stacking in C1 would be great. While I use Affinity Photo for it now, I consider it as a workaround, as I have to export photos out of C1, do the work in AP and then get the result back into C1. Having native stacking right in C1 would simplify my workflow and hopefully have the result still as RAW.
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+1 Nearly as important as panorama stitching
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Christian G
We use focus stacking to ensure the entire field is in focus. For us this can range from documenting sculpture, interiors to macro details of objects. We currently use HeliconFocus and are always thrilled with the results. It is fast, user friendly and more importantly, accurate. However, it would be ideal to have this tool within Capture One to cut down on a round trip to an external app, as well as have the resulting stacked image as a raw file for further processing.5 -
I use focus stacking for flower photography with a studio setup. I currently use Helicon Focus. At least for me, I’m not looking for an abundance of “features”, just a basic tool that does an excellent job of merging to create the final result. I would prefer to do this all within CaptureOne because it simplifies the workflow and provides a much better history of processing edits when I want to go back and change something at a layer date.
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+1 That would be great.
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Please!!! Thanks a lot.
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+1 Please!
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Both Helicon and Zerene do alignment of images, so not clear where the above assessment came from. In fact, when I stack, I only use Helicon, for me it works fabulously well and is head and shoulders better than what I can get in Photoshop and it allows me as much control as I could possibly want. While it could be a convenience function to do stacking in C1, it’s unlikely to be the best at it, similar to HDR and Pano today. I feel neutral on this request. It would take a lot of resources to add capabilities that other tools have been doing for decades and which will likely always do better, yet, of course, there’s the convenience factor for certain situations and for the folks who like “all in one” tools (not my preference, personally).
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JoJu – I could imagine for Affinity Photo it might be more opportunity to steal users away from Adobe. The integration between Adobe and Capture One is non-existent. If Affinity Photo took this on it might be at least a small win for them.
Keep in mind that the user base for Capture One is somewhere in the range of 260K licensed users supported by a staff of about 150 across development, management, support, etc. Adobe is a multi-billion dolllar company with ten times the user base supported by 30K staff? The two companies are in completely different leagues in terms of user base and employees. Adobe makes the vast majority of their revenue from publishing. Photography is a small fraction of their revenue.
I provide these stats only to build the picture (pun intended) that Capture One has to make much more discerning decisions about where to expend their resources based on what they believe will deliver the most value for their users.
Personally I believe Capture One needs to pay more attention to deficiencies that cast negative light on the company. These deficiencies may be costing them as much in reputation and users as new features might bring them. I 100% agree they need a major overhaul in DAM capabilities and core code. I sense their code base is woefully dated and needs major transformation and that this is why it is such a major challenge for them to tackle these long standing issues.
When it comes to Focus Stack Merge there are exceptional products out there. Encouraging those companies to provide plugins to Capture One might be a faster path to success. Given that Capture One has marked this feature as Not Currently Planned they must have determined that the effort won't bring the needed value to enough customers to warrant the investment.
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Plus that part where Affinity is a meh RAW editor (imo) but does quite well as a pixel editor - much like Photoshop and Lightroom.
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+1 Please!
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+1
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+1
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It might be easier to "fix" C1 so that it would be able to pano stitch with TIFFs instead of requiring RAW images. If the pano stitch with TIFFS were implemented, it would then be possible to use Helicon Focus to perform the focus stack operation and then round trip back to C1 for the pano stitching.
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Jan Skýpala and Stanley L. Green
I don't get what C1 would do more or better than Affinity (or Helicon) stacking? The latter is out for quite a while now and does - like other apps - a good job on it. And while the panoramic function of C1 got better - I end up with DNG files easily double the size of included RAW files. After all a panostitcher like PTGui can cost more than a C1 license. And has a ton of features C1 hasn't.
As soon as I combine images together, they are no longer RAWs but demosaïced RGB files. C1 can't even do a context-sensitive fill (or I haven't found that button yet). I also would like to keep the RAWs undestructed for as long as possible but there are limits to that concept.
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I tried Helicon Focus and I'm not a fan. It probably does a good job of stitching if the object doesnt move any but in the real world, there will be slight movements, even focus breathing while taking a shot... even on a tripod. Helicon Focus lacked the first step of aligning the photo first. A good focus stacker needs to first align the photo then stack it in order for it to be worthwhile.
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I can't believe this isn't a feature yet. Would be super useful for landscapes, macro, product photography... The list goes on and on.
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Adding focus stacking into C1 would be much more appreciated by users than a lot of the useless features they have been pushing lately.
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I do not agree that the only advantage of doing focus stacking in C1 is convenience; doing it in C1 allows you to stay in RAW/dng. And, BTW, when Hugin was getting confused while stitching multi-row panos, C1 was working like a champ.
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@Raymond Harrison I agree fully with your post. There are quite a few issues within Capture One which leave some things to be desired. Especially catalog functions which are standard elsewhere like a fulltext search for album names are treated like an unwanted stepchild. Starting with focus stacking and considering the sort of half finshed pano functions lead me to believe, focus stacking would also become half finsihed. So why bother? Panoramas as DNG are big files - trying to imagine 50+ files for a single focusstack with a modern 60 MP sensor would cross the GB border fairly easily.
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SFA, your comment, “Unless, of course, they have a leader with a passion for the functionality who may force things through no matter what the outcome”, hits the nail on the head. It appears to me that since C1 was bought out by venture capital guys, there is no longer any room for Steve Jobs.
While I can’t argue with the need for “return on investment”, I am not obligated to buy an "update" that does not deliver the functionality that I desire.
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lol This is a community based forum for feature requests. Long-winded speculative opinions on company bottom line is inappropriate (here) and I'd bet money that no one even remotely cares. It's rather disturbing you have so much time and desire to contribute in this way.
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Today I use Affinity Photo for focus stacking. The level of user control there is zero, except of selecting which photos to stack from. That is fully sufficient for me. I don't wish for complex parametrization of Helicon Focus. The result quality I get today from Affinity Photo is fine for me.
What bothers me is the complexity of the workflow. Exporting from one app, importing to another and then the result back. If I can have a comparable result within C1 with couple of clicks, I will be happy. I don't care if it is internal functionality of C1, or if it is an integration with Affinity Photo. I just want a simple user experience.
I never said I see focus stacking of ultimate importance. At least I have a way already today. But, if C1 can simplify my life with focus stacking, I will very much welcome that.
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I guess that I didn't make my self clear, Affinity does a fine job for stacking but I prefer C1 or Hugin for stitching.
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Stanley L. Green It's difficult here to relate a post to other posts. In other forums one can reply to posts which were made a couple of posts before. And this thread here is ongoing since 1 year. Sorry if I got confused because of that.
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I agree
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They are to busy building tools for better culling (the wedding photogarper market).
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I agree!
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To me this thread is rather interesting in it's chronology:
Gerald Senesac makes a feature request one year ago
Christian G makes 10 months later not only an official statement afterwards (which gets pinned above 8 other posters using the 10 month time span in between), but also asks the thread opener about his workflow, what Gerald likes about it and what he likes to become improved. As this happened 2 months ago, Gerald now calls himself Last name First name when replying and stating he'd like to do focusstacking within C1 and get a RAW file as a result. First and foremost: Why a RAW? You also could generate a 16 bit TIFF in Helicon and work from there? I think, any DNG from that point on would also only contain the TIF, but no RAW data. Also, as soon as Helicon does its magic, it's not doing it on RAW but on demosaïced files = no longer RAW. So why not try how to get better exports for Helicon?
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