CombineZ
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CombineZ gives nature photographers everything they have dreamed of having - the ability at macro levels (1:1) to have as much detail as you like in focus with a lovely blurred background - all at f/4!

Click here and look at Frame Stacking under my Album page to see how CombineZ processes a 19 frame stack of some lichen, taken as it moved slightly in the breeze.  After pressing on the first image, hit the top right button for a slide show and watch what Alan's program managed to do.

There are other programs available, at a cost, but all the reviews I have read say that CombineZ is better and at a price I can afford - Alan is giving it away free!  There is however a small catch.  Alan is extremely clever and developed his software for microscope work for himself and so it takes quite sometime and effort to use it to it's full potential.  However even running it with its default settings you can get fantastic pictures.

Here is an extremely simple example of what it can do - I took this two photos, resting the camera on my foot (didn't have a tripod with me), of a couple of blades of grass.

The front blade is in focus, but the back one is not - notice the droplets on the right at the back.
and for this shot the back blade is in focus and you can see the big front droplet is out of focus.
CombineZ scales and aligns the pictures, then takes the best bits from both.  

This is rather a trivial set of shots - I have combined up to 38 and Alan does ones in the 250 mark!

For those of you that want to give this program a go, I have made the following notes that summarize the main macro, but you really need to read all of Alan notes and help text.

"Do Stack" (the normal macro to run) - it's actions and what they do........

Select all

Make the Active Rectangle equal to the whole picture

Balance Colour and Brightness (Global)

finds the average colour and brightness of the reference frame then adjusts the other frames to match

Align all Frames Automatically (Two pass)

Resize, rotates and align all frames so that neighbours match and line up correctly

Find Detail(25)

Look for the most likely pixel that should go into the Picture at each x, y location then put it's Frame number in the Depthmap and its colour in the Picture

Remove Islands (5)

Remove small patches of Pixels from Picture and Depthmap, a patch is surrounded by no pixels or pixels from other Frames

Fill Gaps

Calculate likely values for the Depthmap at Empty Pixel locations, then place the corresponding Pixels in the Picture

Normal Filter Output

Cancel any Brightening of Filter outputs

Create a Lowpass Filter(250,0)

Create a Filter that softens or reduces noise

Filter and Replace Depthmap

Filter the Depthmap, replace it with the result and then redraw the Picture

Interpotated Output

Use fractional values stored in the Depthmap to 'Smooth' the Picture, the result will be in Out

Make a new Frame from Out

My idea to take a copy before Sharpen & Contrast, so I can apply my own to frame #998

Make a new Frame from Out

Create a new Frame at the top of the Stack and copy the Picture into it (the Active Frame is not altered)

Go to Frame(999)

Make the Active Frame equal to a fixed number

Create a Highpass Filter(1000,750)

Create a Filter that Sharpens

Filter Active Frame

Use the last created Filter on the Active Frame result in Out

Replace Frame with Out

Overwrites the Active Frame with Out

Adjust Contrast(5)

Alter Contrast of one Frame result in Out

Replace Frame with Out

Overwrites the Active Frame with Out

 Here are some of the basic key stokes to get you going ...

A

- Cycles round All, Original, Clean, and User Rectangles

D

- Toggle Depthmap or Picture

P

- Toggle Plane Mode

TAB

- Toggle between Picture or Depthmap and Active Frame

O

- Toggle between Out and Active Frame

Escape

- Forces a Redraw of the Picture, and resets the view to Full

Up Arrow

- View Frame above Active Frame

Down Arrow

- View Frame below Active Frame

Control+Up Arrow

- View Top Frame

Control+Down Arrow

- View Bottom Frame

 

 

F

- Toggle showing of Fixed Pixels, and enable Fixing or Painting

Space

- Toggle the colour of Fixed and Empty Pixels

 

 

Right-click

- Quick show active rectangle

X [shift]

- Shrink [increase] Active Rectangle, hence view area , by 1 pixel from right

Y [shift]

- Shrink [increase] Active Rectangle, hence view area , by 1 pixel from bottom

Z [shift]

- Shrink [increase] Active Rectangle, hence view area , by 1 pixel all round

Scroll bars

- will Move rectangle in Magnified view

 

 

Backspace

- If viewing Picture, revert to saved Depthmap, then redraw, if Frame Reload

Delete

- If viewing Picture, clear active rectangle; if viewing Frame delete frame

B

- Brings up the Brush Parameters dialog

C

- Fill area of Picture from Active Frame, use colour pointed at as a guide

Shift+C

- Clear area of Picture, use colour pointed at as a guide

 

 

1,2,3,4 [control]

- Sets point 1,2,3,4 [go to]

0

- Brings up the Points dialog

Well worth playing with if you are into close-up and macro work.