"new" free stacking software [Archive] - Canon Digital Photography Forums

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troypiggo

22nd of May 2009 (Fri), 01:41

http://zerenesystems.com/stacker/

Haven't used it, but hearing good things about it.

hobbes2112

22nd of May 2009 (Fri), 02:30

Well they claim to be halo free, might be worth checking out.

I'm a bit hesitant to try out a random .exe off the internet though.

troypiggo

22nd of May 2009 (Fri), 03:10

As always, virus scan etc first. Not much else we can do.

LordV

22nd of May 2009 (Fri), 03:34

Thanks for the headsup - had already downloaded this but haven't tried it yet.
Brian v.

rjlittlefield

23rd of May 2009 (Sat), 18:36

hobbes2112, I share your concern about random .exe's off the internet. In the case of Zerene Stacker, though, it's no secret that I'm the fellow who wrote the thing. I heartily agree that you should virus scan the socks off it -- and if you find anything, be sure to let me know!

Brian v, I'll mention right off that the current version of ZS may not be ideal for the stacks that you shoot -- no manual alignment for one thing. But I'd like to hear what your experiences are, either way. Please feel free to email support@zerenesystems.com with any observations. Anything sent to that address gets copied to my personal email and gets prompt attention.

Thanks for your interest!

Rik Littlefield
Zerene Systems

hobbes2112

24th of May 2009 (Sun), 03:04

Good to hear. I don't do a huge amount of stacking, but I've downloaded the software and if I do need to stack in the future I'll try it out.

macro_shooter

16th of June 2009 (Tue), 14:12

This program looks fantastic, better than combinez. I'm watching the video, i like how you can combine the pmax and dmax images plus original to get the best quality image. Will have to give this program a try.

LordV

18th of June 2009 (Thu), 07:32

Saphire

18th of June 2009 (Thu), 08:27

I am getting an error trying to load it, it is coming up with could not create Java virtual machine, has anyone else had this problem.

LordV

18th of June 2009 (Thu), 15:42

I am getting an error trying to load it, it is coming up with could not create Java virtual machine, has anyone else had this problem.

there is some info on this and how to cure it here http://www.zerenesystems.com/stacker/downloads/KnownIssues.php

Brian v.

Saphire

18th of June 2009 (Thu), 16:15

Thanks Brian I have tried what they suggest and it didn't work. When I opened the ini file there was nowhere for me to change the cache size for java. Java is running fine for all other programs no problem.

LordV

19th of June 2009 (Fri), 01:45

Saphire- looked in my ini file - just has this line

"{appdir}\jre6\bin\javaw.exe" {memsize} -classpath "{appdir}\ZereneStacker.jar;{appdir}\JREextensions\ *" com.zerenesystems.stacker.gui.MainFrame.

think you need to edit the {memsize} to something like -Xmx1200m

Brian V.

rjlittlefield

19th of June 2009 (Fri), 02:47

think you need to edit the {memsize} to something like -Xmx1200m
Correct. Try -Xmx1024m if -Xmx1200m doesn't work. As explained in the KnownIssues page (http://www.zerenesystems.com/stacker/downloads/KnownIssues.php), it's one of those things that varies from system to system for no obvious reason.

Email support@zerenesystems.com if you continue to have problems. I'm always interested to know whenever something doesn't work, either software or documentation.

Brian, I received your email and replied this afternoon. I'm glad to hear Zerene Stacker is working well for you. Thanks much for the feedback and suggestions!

Rik Littlefield
Zerene Systems

Saphire

19th of June 2009 (Fri), 06:05

Thank you Brian, I must have been having a senior moment I was looking for a preference screen like the example not two lines in the ini file doh!
Rik, Xmx1024 works not the 1200m Thank you, now its time to have a play.

gjl711

19th of June 2009 (Fri), 21:58

Downloading and subscribing to thread.

dfielder

21st of June 2009 (Sun), 00:17

http://zerenesystems.com/stacker/

Haven't used it, but hearing good things about it.

I've just started Macro photography last week.
Here is a photo using Zerene (15 files).

C&C most welcome.

D. Fielder

Canon Xti; 100mm f2.8 USM Macro; Velcon focusing rail.

macro_shooter

22nd of June 2009 (Mon), 13:14

Ok, so I've been playing with this program for several days now, has great potential. Only complaint is that in the retouching mode, the program runs very slow. Painting with the brush is laggy and is frustrating. I have a 2.33 core2 duo with 4gb of ram. I've edited the ini file to increase memory usage. I can't get this program to run smoothly. I'm using 5-6, 10 mp images. I've tried this on 2 different machines, one WinXp and the other a Vista machine.

dfielder

22nd of June 2009 (Mon), 19:27

Running the program on a Mac is very smooth and I've processed up to 20 files very quickly.

hobbes2112

22nd of June 2009 (Mon), 19:31

dfielder-
Would you mind posting one of the shots that went into that stack, so that we can get an idea of how much DOF you extended?

Thanks

rjlittlefield

24th of June 2009 (Wed), 19:02

Ok, so I've been playing with this program for several days now, has great potential. Only complaint is that in the retouching mode, the program runs very slow. Painting with the brush is laggy and is frustrating.
macro_shooter, thanks for the feedback and for your interest in Zerene Stacker.

Unless your brush is very large (hundreds of pixels across), brush movements should be smooth as long as the mouse button is held down.

Each time the button is released, there will be a short pause during which the program will not accept input. When this happens you will see a rolling progress indicator at the upper left corner of the screen. The length of the pause depends on image size. With 10 Mpixel images, on an Intel Core Duo, it might be two or three seconds.

So, what works best is to do your retouching in long strokes with the button held continuously down during each stroke. Rapidly pressing and releasing the mouse button does not work well because each release triggers another pause.

The current documentation does not cover this point. A revision is in progress and we've made a note to the developers to look at improving the program behavior in future versions.

If you continue to have difficulties, please contact us by emailing support@zerenesystems.com . Zerene Systems is always eager to know about difficulties and opportunities for improvement.

Best regards,
Rik Littlefield
Zerene Systems