![]() ![]() Years ago, I purchased a lifetime license with ET, which so far, they have honored in every way. I can think of two: Elegant Themes and Webinar Ignition. There are still a few companies that get this concept. It wasn’t just a “communication” issue it was a breach in trust.Īs consumers and business owners, we spend our money on things we believe in and buy into the expectation that the people behind the product/service will continue to value and honor us even when they need to increase their bottom line. Not too long ago I experienced the very same gut punch situation with Affinity software and the thing I couldn’t get the company to understand was how betrayed I felt by them. I emphasize with you and am sorry that this happened. Thank you for your feedback and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any further concerns or questions. We will continue releasing great new add-ons, and we hope you will see enough value in them to support our company so we will be able to provide even more great options in the future. That being said, we hope that the new features in the core plugin have been valuable to you and enhance your experience with Formidable. This is in contrast to many other companies who have stopped offering free options or one-time fees and have required their users to start paying or switch to a different solution. We have continued to serve updates to those who haven’t paid anything in over 5-10 years. However, I want to assure you that the value we offered at the time of your purchase has not been reduced in any way. Our lifetime license includes lifetime updates, but we realize that we didn’t communicate clearly enough that this would not include every new feature we release in the future. I can definitely understand why this would be frustrating for you.įirstly, I want to apologize for any miscommunication on our part. That product at the time never took off but now all the major brands of cameras offer focus stacking including Sony.I understand that you are upset about the lifetime license you purchased years ago not including access to new add-ons. I did this 10 years ago when I first started experimenting with focus stacking and actually was testing a focus stacking device made by a company in Dallas. My advice if you are interested in purchasing Helicon Focus is to pay for the lifetime license. Now let’s take a look at Helicon’s blending of the same images: With Helicon Focus, the entire foreground was blended seamlessly with no hint of softness. Let’s take a closer look at just the dark foreground area of rocks where Photoshop clearly struggled: Photoshop’s blend of the dark foreground rocks was very inconsistent. I purposely processed this image a bit brighter to reveal the irregularities of the darker foreground blends. Some rocks are sharp while other areas are soft. Notice the lack of consistent blend in the foreground. ![]() All 28 frames were opened as a stack, aligned, then blended – here is the result: Photoshop blended frame. Here is the same image composited in Photoshop. Moreover, the entire process in Helicon is faster than Photoshop’s two-step method of opening as a stack out of Lightroom, then aligning and blending in Photoshop. On the other hand, Helicon Focus delivered consistent result from any stack I threw its way. What I found out after a week of working on files is that Photoshop is good most of the time but struggles when there are a lot of dark tones (such as the foreground of this 28-layer stack). What I wanted access to were the RAWS so I could use either Photoshop CC 2022 or Helicon Focus to assemble the frames. In short, I don’t care that the camera does not do the composite as that would be a JPEG file. One of the features I have been asking our engineers for that was included in this camera was the ability to focus stack and have access to the RAW files. I love guiding this workshop and as a bonus this year I got to work with the new Sony a7RV. I have returned from a three week journey to Iceland co-leading two workshops with fellow Sony Artisan Gary Hart. Twenty-eight frames composited with Helicon Focus Captured with Sony a7RV + 100-400mm (shot at 300mm) in Focus Stack Mode. Focus Stacking :: Photoshop or Helicon Focus? Sunrise-lit Mountain Near Vik, Iceland.
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