After a week w/Helicon Focus, some thoughts.
The resulting images are quite good (Zerene seemingly produces better for some of the buggy stuff, but has no RAW workflow, which is a non-starter for me), but the user interface is quite sub-par both in bugginess and in user experience).
Off the top of my head (from an OS X perspective):
(1) Nearly totally unresponsive when processing.
(2) Zoom tends to be laggy.
(3) Batch mode leaves behind previous temp files, can easily fill a disk with no longer needed data.
(4) UI, itself, is laggy and unresponsive even when not processing
(5) 3D Viewer doesn't work (Mac).
(6) Even when registered, occasionally watermarks files.
(7) The icons below the output list are often lost.
(8) Feels like a non-native Mac app.
(9) Copy/paste doesn't work consistently, can't use in file dialogs.
(10) Zoom controls are annoyingly animated and laggy.
Fantastic Results; UI is buggy & inconsistent.
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Stas Yatsenko
- Posts: 3841
- Joined: 06.05.2009 14:05
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Re: Fantastic Results; UI is buggy & inconsistent.
Thanks for the feedback.
You said "Zerene produces better for some of the buggy stuff", could you send us some examples of such buggy stacks where Helicon Focus lags behind? We'd like to take a look. It's possible that tweaking settings will help, and if not, we might want to tweak our algorithm.
1. Do you have the latest version of the program, 6.7.1? It used to be a problem, but in 6.7.1 we've made the problem less severe, but it still may occur. We are further working on this.
2. Could you record a short video demonstration of that problem for us, please?
3. I'll look into it, don't recall the batch mode specifics (if there are any). Generally, the junk is put in the cache folder, and that whole folder is wiped periodically so it shouldn't be a problem. Where is this junk located?
4. Same as 1.
5. Doesn't work in what way?
6. That is a bug that started occurring recently, so far we can't locate it (it doesn't happen on any of our computers). Meanwhile, the fix is to re-register: go to menu -> Register online, paste your activation code and press Enter.
7. Could you illustrate that with a screenshot, please?
8. Are there any specific items you can point out that contribute to this feeling?
9. So far we can't do anything about that. Right-click -> Paste works, though, it's only Cmd+V that does not.
10. Same as 2? I mean - yes, they're animated, but shouldn't lag.
You said "Zerene produces better for some of the buggy stuff", could you send us some examples of such buggy stacks where Helicon Focus lags behind? We'd like to take a look. It's possible that tweaking settings will help, and if not, we might want to tweak our algorithm.
1. Do you have the latest version of the program, 6.7.1? It used to be a problem, but in 6.7.1 we've made the problem less severe, but it still may occur. We are further working on this.
2. Could you record a short video demonstration of that problem for us, please?
3. I'll look into it, don't recall the batch mode specifics (if there are any). Generally, the junk is put in the cache folder, and that whole folder is wiped periodically so it shouldn't be a problem. Where is this junk located?
4. Same as 1.
5. Doesn't work in what way?
6. That is a bug that started occurring recently, so far we can't locate it (it doesn't happen on any of our computers). Meanwhile, the fix is to re-register: go to menu -> Register online, paste your activation code and press Enter.
7. Could you illustrate that with a screenshot, please?
8. Are there any specific items you can point out that contribute to this feeling?
9. So far we can't do anything about that. Right-click -> Paste works, though, it's only Cmd+V that does not.
10. Same as 2? I mean - yes, they're animated, but shouldn't lag.