Helicon cheats depth-of-field challenges

When it comes to discerning the nuances of shadow and light in the physicial world, it's hard to beat the human eye. That's why some imagesmiths resort to digital tricks, like High Dynamic Range processing, to level the playing field between peeper and lens. With HDR processing, an image editor can meld several photos with different exposure settings into an arresting picture.

A similar process can used to surmount another bugaboo for lensefolk: the narrowing of the depth of field in macro photography. No doubt you've encountered that problem when taking a close-up of a flower or insect. You can only get a portion of the subject in focus because the aperture of the shot is limiting your depth of field. One way to address that problem--a way that predates digital photography--is to use a tilt-shift lens. That can be a costly solution to the snag, since a good tilt-shift lens sells in the $1500 range. But, as Megapixel.net contributor Jim Bilbro, of Georgetown, Texas, pointed out to me this week, there's a more economical resolution to the depth-of-field challenge. It's called Helicon Focus.

What you do is shoot a number of photos focusing each on different areas of the same subject. Then you feed the pics into Helicon Focus and it creates a single image with what's essentially a depth of field of infintiy.

Prices for the software, which is made for both Windows and Mac platforms, range from $30 for a one-year license for a "lite" version of the program to $250 for the "pro" version of the application with an unlimited license. Before you buy, though, you can try it out for 30 days for free by downloading it from the Helicon Web site.