Bless vs CombineZP

Bless is a free binary editor for editing files as sequences of bytes. It supports multilevel undo and redo, customizable data views, multiple tabs, and fast find and replace. The project highlights efficient handling of large data files and raw disk editing, with search and save operations running in multiple threads. Bless exports to text and HTML, while plugins can add other export formats and extend the editor. It is written in C# with Gtk# bindings for GTK+ and distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. GNU/Linux is the main target; listed supported platforms are Linux and Windows, and the README says it should also run on *BSD, Solaris, and Win32. Building the current version requires GTK+, a Mono/.NET runtime and C# compiler, Gtk# bindings, pkg-config, and Meson. The GitHub releases page has no releases, and the README provides source-build instructions. NEWS lists version 0.6.3 dated 2020-10-11. Saving a changed-size file under the same name requires temporary space for both files; same-size files save in place.

CombineZP is a Windows focus-stacking program that combines focused regions from multiple photographs into an image with greater depth of field. Its documented methods include Do Stack and Pyramid Maximum Contrast. It provides quick and thorough image alignment, with rotation correction in thorough alignment. Batch processing can stack images, and users can adjust memory use for image sets that demand more from the computer. Macro parameters are editable for additional control over close-up stacking. JPEG is the documented output format. The program is free and the repository identifies its license as GPL-3.0. The repository preserves code originally created by Alan Hadley and shared under the GPL; it contains CombineZ5 and combineZP directories, a README, a license file, and an installer. The README refers to a compiled Windows x86 version 1.0, updated January 27, 2012, in a file named combinezp.msi. The repository says it is kept for posterity, lists no published releases, and a microscopy tools page describes the software as not maintained. Windows is the listed platform; a third-party microscopy tools page also says it works with Wine on Linux.