Congratulations and questions :-)

[Fer]

I just upgraded my HF license to Pro X64, and I want to congratulate once more for this excellent application.

I use HF primarly to stack film scans, in order to overcome film flatness issues; so what I do is scanning the same frame 3 to 6 times with different scanner focus settings (evenly spaced) and then stack them together to get an image which is properly sharp across the frame.
Since my files are really big (50 to 110 megapixels, 48 bpp) I had to upgrade to X64 because the 32 bit version could not cope.

I'm delighted to see HF X64 working through these enormous files with great ease, even on my 2nd PC which is a very old AMD X2 2.6GHz with just 4 GB of RAM.
Well done folks!

Now the questions.
Given my needs (focus stack of 3 - 6 scans at different scanner focus distance), what is a good starting point for the HF parameters?
My original scans are quite sharp and of course I want to retain this sharpness; problem is, I'm not sure which method (A or B), Radius and Smoothing are most appropriate for my needs.
Now I'm working with Method B, Radius 6, Smoothing 6, but i seem to notice a slight degradation in sharpness.

Thanks for your advice.

Fernando

[Stas Yatsenko]

As your object is a smooth surface without edges and protruding parts, I would recommend you to use Method B and let larger radius and smoothness. Please also try to set lower value of Depth Map feathering, this may add more sharpness but also make transition between areas from different layers more noticeable. You need to make some experiments to find the best combination.