Pages: [1] 2   Go Down

Author Topic: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12  (Read 5781 times)

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« on: January 01, 2019, 09:39:21 am »

Hello,
I upgraded to C1 12 and have downloaded the Helicon Focus plugin. I’ve installed and activated it as indicated here: https://www.heliconsoft.com/capture-one-plugin/
My question is, does this only work with the Phase One XF camera, or can it be used with any C1 supported raw file? Thanks!
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

faberryman

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4851
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2019, 09:49:35 am »

The marketing material says:

"The built-in focus stacking feature of Phase One XF Camera System combined with this plugin provides a simple and easy workflow for creation of stunning images with infinite depth of field."
Logged

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2019, 10:53:09 am »

Yes, but it doesn't say that it's exclusive to the XF. It's vague.

The marketing material says:

"The built-in focus stacking feature of Phase One XF Camera System combined with this plugin provides a simple and easy workflow for creation of stunning images with infinite depth of field."
« Last Edit: January 01, 2019, 01:58:36 pm by sanvandur »
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2019, 10:56:49 am »

Hello,
I upgraded to C1 12 and have downloaded the Helicon Focus plugin. I’ve installed and activated it as indicated here: https://www.heliconsoft.com/capture-one-plugin/
My question is, does this only work with the Phase One XF camera, or can it be used with any C1 supported raw file? Thanks!

Hi,

It's supposed to work with all supported files, but the integration with the PhaseOne XF makes it even easier because the files can be selected by sequence number.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2019, 11:04:18 am »

Aha! So it does work. Although, when I select images and the go to “edit with”, Helicon does not show up. So I’m either doing it wrong or it’s simply not possible.

Hi,

It's supposed to work with all supported files, but the integration with the PhaseOne XF makes it even easier because the files can be selected by sequence number.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2019, 11:29:09 am »

Aha! So it does work. Although, when I select images and the go to “edit with”, Helicon does not show up. So I’m either doing it wrong or it’s simply not possible.

I just tried it with an old Focus-stack.

I then select all images and Right-Mouse-Click, and under 'Edit with' is an option "Stack with Helicon Focus".

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

Rado

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 247
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #6 on: January 01, 2019, 11:57:56 am »

What is the result of doing that? Do you get a new raw file (like when doing merge in LR/CR) that you can further tweak in CO? Or do you have to export the result to a TIFF etc, just like you'd do without the plugin?
Logged

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2019, 12:15:27 pm »

What is the result of doing that? Do you get a new raw file (like when doing merge in LR/CR) that you can further tweak in CO?

No, you get whatever you choose in Helicon Focus as the format to save in (TIF, JPEG, or DNG). These can all be further tweaked in C1.

Quote
Or do you have to export the result to a TIFF etc, just like you'd do without the plugin?

It's more like the latter. The plugin just offers a few additional choices like which input file format to convert to, or to enable/disable sharpening, before invoking Helicon Focus, or to keep/discard the intermediate files when done.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #8 on: January 01, 2019, 01:45:52 pm »

Is the plugin all you need, or does it require having Helicon Focus full program as well to work in the background?

No, you get whatever you choose in Helicon Focus as the format to save in (TIF, JPEG, or DNG). These can all be further tweaked in C1.

It's more like the latter. The plugin just offers a few additional choices like which input file format to convert to, or to enable/disable sharpening, before invoking Helicon Focus, or to keep/discard the intermediate files when done.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #9 on: January 01, 2019, 02:32:29 pm »

Is the plugin all you need, or does it require having Helicon Focus full program as well to work in the background?

It assumes you have a licensed version of Helicon Focus. The plugin starts up the application if it's not open yet.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #10 on: January 01, 2019, 03:59:22 pm »

Now I understand. The plugin is essentially a means to link C1 and Helicon together. Thanks again!

It assumes you have a licensed version of Helicon Focus. The plugin starts up the application if it's not open yet.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #11 on: January 04, 2019, 04:19:28 pm »

I now have Capture One 12 and Helicon Focus Pro installed. I tried the plugin method from C1v12. However, it processes my images and opens them as tiffs in Helicon. Is there a way to have them open in Helicon as RAW? I've done it successfully directly from Helicon; opening, processing, and exporting as DNG. I'm wondering if it's possible from C1. I'm hoping it is, otherwise the plugin is pretty useless.
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

Ray Harrison

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 151
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #12 on: January 04, 2019, 06:22:46 pm »

I now have Capture One 12 and Helicon Focus Pro installed. I tried the plugin method from C1v12. However, it processes my images and opens them as tiffs in Helicon. Is there a way to have them open in Helicon as RAW? I've done it successfully directly from Helicon; opening, processing, and exporting as DNG. I'm wondering if it's possible from C1. I'm hoping it is, otherwise the plugin is pretty useless.

I think it would have to be Helicon that would have to enable that particular flow as it's their plugin. I notice that when stacking from C1, the raw-in-DNG-out flow isn't even an option in the variant of Helicon that is presented via the plugin. Or maybe the C1 SDK doesn't allow sending raw files at this time.

I might be mistaken, but I think Helicon is a bit loosey-goosey with their terminology. I believe in the raw-in-DNG-out flow, when  Helicon "opens a raw image", it really does a DNG conversion behind the scenes, does demosaicing using Adobe algorithms in the image's color space and is then ready to stack for what is essentially, for all intents and purposes, a group of TIFF images. When it saves as DNG, it's really a DNG'd TIFF with relevant metadata and not a true raw image (which wouldn't make sense (to me) anyway).

Logged

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #13 on: January 04, 2019, 07:41:20 pm »

Interesting theory. If the C1 plugin doesn’t do the raw-dng thing, then it doesn’t. I’m no engineer, and even if I were I wouldn’t have access to Helicon’s code to prove it one way or the other. From what I’ve seen in Helicon’s literature, they say it’s all in the raw-dng realm. I have no reason to suspect otherwise.

I think it would have to be Helicon that would have to enable that particular flow as it's their plugin. I notice that when stacking from C1, the raw-in-DNG-out flow isn't even an option in the variant of Helicon that is presented via the plugin. Or maybe the C1 SDK doesn't allow sending raw files at this time.

I might be mistaken, but I think Helicon is a bit loosey-goosey with their terminology. I believe in the raw-in-DNG-out flow, when  Helicon "opens a raw image", it really does a DNG conversion behind the scenes, does demosaicing using Adobe algorithms in the image's color space and is then ready to stack for what is essentially, for all intents and purposes, a group of TIFF images. When it saves as DNG, it's really a DNG'd TIFF with relevant metadata and not a true raw image (which wouldn't make sense (to me) anyway).
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

Ray Harrison

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 151
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2019, 12:09:42 am »

Interesting theory. If the C1 plugin doesn’t do the raw-dng thing, then it doesn’t. I’m no engineer, and even if I were I wouldn’t have access to Helicon’s code to prove it one way or the other. From what I’ve seen in Helicon’s literature, they say it’s all in the raw-dng realm. I have no reason to suspect otherwise.

Stacking can’t happen on raw files directly, even in Helicon. The raw files have to be converted to RGB format of some sort before the stacking algorithms can do their thing and once demosaiced and stacked, it can’t be turned back into what your camera would call a raw file. According to Helicon, they can convert on the fly (demosaic, etc) using Adobe then stack and save the stacked RGB image (high quality TIFF) as either a straight TIFF (they recommend this) or a DNG (using the converted, stacked TIFF).

So I guess my long winded point is sending a series of high quality TIFFs that you have control over from C1 and stacking those should be on par with Helicon doing the conversion for you. Not defending the lack of used-to functionality in the plugin  :) just offering my unasked for opinion and a reason that it might be OK to use it.

The Zerene folks have a good summary that applies to Helicon.
Logged

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2019, 05:06:41 am »

Stacking can’t happen on raw files directly, even in Helicon. The raw files have to be converted to RGB format of some sort before the stacking algorithms can do their thing and once demosaiced and stacked, it can’t be turned back into what your camera would call a raw file. According to Helicon, they can convert on the fly (demosaic, etc) using Adobe then stack and save the stacked RGB image (high quality TIFF) as either a straight TIFF (they recommend this) or a DNG (using the converted, stacked TIFF).

That's correct. Part of the Focus stacking workflow is resizing and aligning/registering of the image slices. For that, it's easier that they are already demosaiced. So sooner or later, the Raw source images will be no longer Raw. That the output file can be wrapped in a DNG wrapper doesn't make it Raw again.

Quote
So I guess my long winded point is sending a series of high quality TIFFs that you have control over from C1 and stacking those should be on par with Helicon doing the conversion for you.

I disagree. The C1 Raw conversions are of higher quality (higher resolution and fewer artifacts) than a straight Adobe demosaicing. C1 offers additional features like Dust removal with LCCs which is a heaven sent for Focus-stacking, and the LCCs capability of neutralizing Light Fall-off and vignetting is also helpful because we are going to blend images after resizing them, so the vignetting (and local exposure) would be different in each slice.

So TIFFs coming from C1 would have higher quality, allowing to achieve higher quality Focus-Stacks, with less need to post-process for error correction. The Plugin is not a game changer, but it does make life a little easier.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

Ray Harrison

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 151
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2019, 08:54:16 am »


I disagree. The C1 Raw conversions are of higher quality (higher resolution and fewer artifacts) than a straight Adobe demosaicing. C1 offers additional features like Dust removal with LCCs which is a heaven sent for Focus-stacking, and the LCCs capability of neutralizing Light Fall-off and vignetting is also helpful because we are going to blend images after resizing them, so the vignetting (and local exposure) would be different in each slice.

So TIFFs coming from C1 would have higher quality, allowing to achieve higher quality Focus-Stacks, with less need to post-process for error correction. The Plugin is not a game changer, but it does make life a little easier.

Cheers,
Bart

Bart, totally agree - I'd actually come on to LuLa this morning to edit my original answer to reflect this, so thank you for stating it much better than I ever could.  :)
Logged

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2019, 09:50:12 am »

I’m learning a lot here. Thanks to everyone who has chimed in. This makes sense, although I do wish Capture/Phase One and Helicon would explain their process better.

That's correct. Part of the Focus stacking workflow is resizing and aligning/registering of the image slices. For that, it's easier that they are already demosaiced. So sooner or later, the Raw source images will be no longer Raw. That the output file can be wrapped in a DNG wrapper doesn't make it Raw again.

I disagree. The C1 Raw conversions are of higher quality (higher resolution and fewer artifacts) than a straight Adobe demosaicing. C1 offers additional features like Dust removal with LCCs which is a heaven sent for Focus-stacking, and the LCCs capability of neutralizing Light Fall-off and vignetting is also helpful because we are going to blend images after resizing them, so the vignetting (and local exposure) would be different in each slice.

So TIFFs coming from C1 would have higher quality, allowing to achieve higher quality Focus-Stacks, with less need to post-process for error correction. The Plugin is not a game changer, but it does make life a little easier.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2019, 09:53:06 am »

I see. Thanks so much for clarifying ;)

Stacking can’t happen on raw files directly, even in Helicon. The raw files have to be converted to RGB format of some sort before the stacking algorithms can do their thing and once demosaiced and stacked, it can’t be turned back into what your camera would call a raw file. According to Helicon, they can convert on the fly (demosaic, etc) using Adobe then stack and save the stacked RGB image (high quality TIFF) as either a straight TIFF (they recommend this) or a DNG (using the converted, stacked TIFF).

So I guess my long winded point is sending a series of high quality TIFFs that you have control over from C1 and stacking those should be on par with Helicon doing the conversion for you. Not defending the lack of used-to functionality in the plugin  :) just offering my unasked for opinion and a reason that it might be OK to use it.

The Zerene folks have a good summary that applies to Helicon.
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com

sanvandur

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
    • http://www.santiagovanegas.com
Re: Helicon Focus plug in for Capture One 12
« Reply #19 on: January 05, 2019, 05:12:21 pm »

This has all been very helpful. Thanks again for everyone's insight!
I'm now trying the Helicon C1v12 plugin. After rendering is finished in Helicon I go to save and DNG is not an option, which leaves tiff as the option. The only way (according to the screen shot I included) to enable DNG out is by opening raw images from Helicon. Is this correct or am I missing something? Here are screen shots of my output from C1 options and the no dng option warning from Helicon.
Logged
Santiago Vanegas photography at www.santiagovanegas.com
Pages: [1] 2   Go Up