Helicon Focus

Macro (close-up) photography is a tricky skill to master. It is difficult to capture images in sharp focus with this type of photography. Helicon Focus can help photographers salvage partially focused macro photographs by combining them into one clear image.

Photographers will be able to use this program with just a cursory look at the Help file. There is a demo that you can watch that shows what the program can do. Amateurs and hobbyists will have to read the Help file more carefully, but it is well written and succinct. We first tried the Animation and 3D Model features. It was fun to watch the sharpening process step by step with the Animation feature and to see a 3D version of the image. We used Helicon Focus on one of our blurry images, but we only had one partially focused version of our image, so it did not work. Helicon Focus recommends that you have at least three partially focused versions of the same image, so keep that in mind when using this program. You can save images in all of the common graphic formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, and even PSD files so you can edit them in Photoshop.

The program offers an ample 30-day trial. Watermarks will appear on images created with the trial version. It installs and uninstalls from your computer with no fuss. Helicon Focus is a well-designed program with an easy-to-use interface. It tackles a common photography problem efficiently. Photographers and scientists who take photographs through microscopes will find Helicon Focus a handy tool.