Helicon Focus Workflow

Step 1. Creating stack of images

You are supposed to work with an optical microscope and a digital camera, or with additional macrolens on digital camera.

  • Set your digital camera to manual focusing mode(!!) and set the focus to infinity.
  • Manual mode (shutter speed and exposure) is also preferable to avoid fluctuation of brightness.
  • Adjust the microscope to make the topmost area of the object sharp.
  • Take a shot. Use the remote control (if available) to minimize any shaking of the camera.
  • Using the fine adjustment controls, the shift sharp area a little down.
  • Take a shot.
  • Use small, roughly regular steps while adjusting the mircoscope and taking shots. It is better when sharp areas overlap.
  • Take shots until you reach the lowest area of the scene.
  • Copy images from the camera to your computer.

Step 2. Loading images to Helicon Focus

  • Start HeliconFocus via menu, quick launch or desktop icon.
  • Add files with File->Add new item(s) command. Note that multiple selection is possible with the Open File dialog. Click the first file and Shift-click the last file to select all of them.

If the file contains EXIF information, then it will be shown just below the image preview.

Helicon Focus supports JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PSD and various RAW formats with 8 and 16 bits per channel.

Step 3. Combining images

  • Run calculation with Edit-Run menu command or Run button.
  • Review the resulting image, run again with new parameters if needed.

Step 4. Saving the output file

  • Click on the image in the output list you want to save, then use the menu command File\Save, toolbar icon or hotkey Ctrl-S.
  • In the save dialog select the file format (JPEG, BMP, TIFF, JPEG2000, PSD) and set the name of the output file.

JPEG quality control uses the Photoshop scale (7-12) and Photoshop "Save for the Web" scale (52-100%)

If the input files have 16 bit per channel, then output TIFF will also be written with 16 bit quality.