Depth Composting - DPP vs. Helicon

[TwoWheeler]

Just goofing around and decided to try stacking the same set of images in both softwarez.

First up is Helicon:

• Join to view EXIF data.

Next is DPP

As you can see, DPP did....ok, but there's a lot of weird halo-y stuff going on. There were some halos in the Helicon version but I was able to retouch them - which sort of isn't fair, but then again it is because DPP doesn't offer that functionality, which is a demerit for DPP. Also, DPP took two eternities and a couple forevers to stack, Helicon blew through the 50 image stack in about two minutes.

DPP wins on price though. Worth every penny I paid...

(Oh, and one more Pro Tip: if you're trying to compost images in DPP and it tells you "Select two or more images"...even though you plainly have multiple images selected, check the EXIF. If anything changed while you were shooting the stack - Auto ISO making an adjustment for instance - DPP will not recognize the images as being "the same". It helpfully doesn't TELL you that's the problem, just tells you "Select two or more images". This was the cause of COPIOUS quantities of profanity until I figured it out).

 

[JustUs7]

DPP allows you to brush in from specific layers.

I don’t recall the name off hand, but it’s the tool right below the Depth Compositing tool.

 

[TwoWheeler]

DPP allows you to brush in from specific layers.

I don’t recall the name off hand, but it’s the tool right below the Depth Compositing tool.

Might that be "Start Depth Composting Editing Tool"? DOH!

In my defense, if you choose the the "Dpth Compositing Tool" tab, you never SEE that option. It's only available through the "Tools" menu.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Helicon was still about ten times faster, but that has its quirks, too. Plus, DPP spits out JPEG, Helicon will do DNG.

 

[TwoWheeler]

My daily helping of crow: