[dosdan]

I saw that Falconeye recommended this program for image stacking so I downloaded a trial version to test. While it does have a K20D camera profile, none of the lenses match what I have. I selected a Sigma 12-24/F4.5-5.6 lens from its list to use with my DA 16-45/F4. There are a number of things you can do without an exact match. This program does look worthwhile and you can create & upload test files photographed on your LCD monitor with your own lens and get it added to the profile.

I wanted to see how well NR-through-stacking worked. Since it was a bright sunny day, I photographed a Hi-Speed Continuous burst of 14 PEF raw files at ISO 3200, 1/1500s, F8 with half the frame in shadow. Now I never go above ISO 1600, so this an intentional push.

With the K20D you can also do a continuous burst of up to 16 shoots if you use DNG, which is probably a good idea since the program wants DNG or JPGs as the input, and transparently invokes Adobe's free DNG converter if you feed it PEF files. What I haven't tested yet is whether PhotoAcute will be happy with Pentax DNG files straight from the camera.

PhotoAcute claims that it will correct alignment problems, so I did this burst of 14 shots hand-held.

When the program produced the stacked image you can compare it against the original and zoom in. It saves the output of the processing as a DNG/TIF/JPG etc., so you can then feed the stacked file to your favourite raw converter and develop it just like any other raw file.

First off, here is one of the 14 raw input files converted in Silkypix Developer Studio Pro, to show you the 170x100 region that will be compared. Orig. size was 4672x3104.





Now the comparison shot of the region under examination. This is a capture from part of PhotoAcute's screen so the raw file has not yet been developed and the colours and details are only approximate. This is at a 350% zoom since the region is only about 170x100. I selected Bicubic display resizing in PhotoAcute so the image is being smoothed, but it doesn't do much to hide the ISO 3200 noise in the K20D.




Here is the final 170x100 region from the first of the 14 PEF raw files and from the output (stacked) DNG raw file, after developing in SP Pro. I've only used default colours, contrast & sharpness settings. (I've copied the default development parameters from one image to the others to made sure they were the same.) Afterwards I've applied a 3.5x Lanczos resize to bring it back to 1200x350 to match the original screen display width of the comparison shot.



At the default setting, little or no obvious NR was performed in the RAW converter. When I tried raw converter NR on one of the original PEF files, the results weren't good as there was little detail.

As you can see, PhotoAcute Studio does a great job at NR when presented with enough input files.


Dan.

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Last edited by dosdan; 01-27-2012 at 02:06 PM.

[dbh]

Yes the noise reduction works well and I'm very impressed by its automatic alignment and a nice feature is its ability to output just the aligned images. The super-resolution never fails to impress me, as well.

I recently found a use for this program's noise-reduction, up-res, DR compression, and moving object removal: traffic cams. Loads of fun.
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dbh

[mysticcowboy]

I just learned this technique and am trying it out. You use 14 images! Is that really necessary. I'm willing to use burst mode for 5 or so, but if more than a dozen are necessary, that just seems too time and memory consuming.

michael mckee
My Port Townsend – A City in Photographs – 365

[dosdan]

I just learned this technique and am trying it out. You use 14 images! Is that really necessary. I'm willing to use burst mode for 5 or so, but if more than a dozen are necessary, that just seems too time and memory consuming.

You don't need to use 14 shots. I did that because it's the max. RAW burst length before the K20D's buffer fills. I'd only use stacking if it was going to be a special shot, not for every shot.

Dan,

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Last edited by dosdan; 01-19-2010 at 02:01 AM.

[deejjjaaaa]

and the good thing is that you can earn a free pro license by submitting a profile... I submitted profiles for Sigma DP2 and Pentax Kx w/ FA35/2.0AL 2-3 weeks ago (both profiles were tested and approved by their developers - you will get a license immediately after your first profile is accepted) - but there are hell lot of other lenses not covered yet, so you can easily get a copy by spending some time shooting a target off your LCD screen

[dosdan]

and the good thing is that you can earn a free pro license by submitting a profile... I submitted profiles for Sigma DP2 and Pentax Kx w/ FA35/2.0AL 2-3 weeks ago (both profiles were tested and approved by their developers - you will get a license immediately after your first profile is accepted) - but there are hell lot of other lenses not covered yet, so you can easily get a copy by spending some time shooting a target off your LCD screen

Yes, I want to get around to submitting DA 16-45/F4 & DA 55-300/F4-5.8 profiles.

Did you tilt your screen a bit off horizontal?


Dan.

[deejjjaaaa]

Did you tilt your screen a bit off horizontal?

no, the screen was not moved - I was moving a little bit the camera position instead (up/down/left/right)