Question on software

[bigrig52]

What program do they use for the 3d effects on coins and also what program to do overlays..

[hasfam]

I use Photoshop CS2 for my overlays. I don't know what 3D effect you're referring to.

[ray_parkhurst]

For the 3D stuff I've been doing I use Helicon Focus. It puts together the focus stacks and generates a depth map from them, then uses the depth map info for 3D rendering.

I'm too cheap to buy Photoshop so I used Paint.net for the recent overlays I've been doing. It's pretty intuitive, and free.

Helicon is not free (I think it $25 per year license).

Ray

[admrose]

I do most of my cherry picking on my phone. For overlays I use an iphone app called Blender.

[Justafarmer]

On the 3-D imaging

Are the stacks produced based on an algorithim extrapolated from a single image or does it require stacking multiple images taken from different focal points?

[ray_parkhurst]

Multiple images are required. There is too much information required to construct an accurate depth map for extrapolation to work.

[coop]

Multiple images are required. There is too much information required to construct an accurate depth map for extrapolation to work.

How many are multiple?

What directions, like N-E-W-S?

[ray_parkhurst]

Most of the 3D renderings I've published recently were composed of 26 image focus stacks.

[Justafarmer]

Is that 26 images taken from 26 different perspectives?

[ray_parkhurst]

No, all shots are straight-on but at varying focal planes.