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It's an (almost) FREE world! - part 6 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

by Mike McNamee Published

Combine ZM

This is a utility for combining images to increase the depth of field in a shot, particularly macro images. It is one of a number which perform this task, the most popular of which seems to be Helicon (which costs around $300). Combine ZM was developed by Alan Hadley and we reviewed the program almost exactly a year ago. Little has changed in the intervening period. The program still does a good job. We note from the website that Alan Hadley has developed a Memory Management system which means the size of pictures that can be processed has increased dramatically, but there is still a limit. The amount of memory you have in your computer is the limiting factor. As a rough guide, you take your computer's RAM in megabytes, subtract 200, then divide by 50. This is the approximate maximum picture size the program can handle in megapixels; things slow down when you approach the limit.

Our own efforts at this type of imaging pale somewhat alongside the work of Charles Krebs (www.krebsmicro.com). Krebs is a Helicon user and so we are a little off target for our freeware theme but the site is well worth a visit.
http://www.hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CZ5/combinez5.htm

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last update 09/12/2022 14:54:27

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It's an (almost) FREE world! - part 6 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11