November 7, 2024

Helicon Focus

I have been using Zerene for a number of years. People I know keep recommending Helicon Focus, so I decided to try it.

A negative is that it is Windows only (or Mac) with no support for Linux. One positive is that it is designed to work with raw capture.

Cost

You can buy a yearly license. You can also try it for 30 days for free. Like Zerene, they say that all updates and upgrades are free for life. It has a single user license, but can be installed on up to 4 machines.
Prices for a lifetime license are available in 3 levels: 
Premium - $240
Professional - $200
Lite - $115

They have a nice page that shows the feature list for the various packages. It looks to me that the only Pro versus Premium difference is that Premium gives you access to Helicon Remote mobile.

Compare this to Zerene stacker which gets sold at 4 levels. You only need the Professional Edition if you are using Zerene to make money. I currently have the Personal Edition. 

Professional Edition, $289 USD
Prosumer Edition, $189 USD
Personal Edition, $89 USD
Student Edition, $39 USD

Install

On my windows 10 machine, I launch chrome, go to their download side, click on the windows version and it downloads HeliconFocus.exe (114M) on 11-7-2024.

I select and run this "exe". It tells me it is coming from Gelikon Software and is installing "Helicon Focus 8 Setup".
It installs to "C:/Program Files/Helicon Software/Helicon Focus 8"

The install process recommends installing the free Adobe DNG converter. This is to allow Helicon to save raw images as DNG files. I agree, and it takes me (using Chrome) to a page on their site to download this. This bounces me to the Adobe site, where I select the Windows x86-64 version. The download takes a long time and yields a 1.2G file! I select and run this installer - it seems to download a myriad of files and puts them in lots of places. A lot (maybe all) seems to go to "C:/Program Files/Adobe". There are lens and camera profiles for all kinds of equipment that I don't have -- so this is a lot of bloat and far more than just a DNG converter. I already use Lightroom, so you would think I might already have a lot of this stuff and I probably do. It finishes by launching the converter. I exit and go back to the Helicon installer.

Now Helicon downloads its files, which are modest by comparison and when I click Finish and it launches Helicon. It offers to run a demo or to let me view tutorials. I hope there will be a way to do this later, but I dismiss this popup. I see the demos offered under the "File" tab and the tutorials are available under the "Help" tab.

The title bar at the top of the window tells me: "8.2.18 -- trial, 30 days left".

I now have two new desktop shortcuts: 

Helicon 3D viewer
Helicon Focus8
It opens quickly when I click on the "Helicon Focus8" shortcut.

Monitor

My monitor is a Dell U2413. This is a 1920 by 1200 monitor (as recommended for Helicon). It has a full sRGC color gamut and can hold an internal color calibration table.
Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Mineralogy Info / tom@mmto.org