FOCUS projects 4 professional vs FocusFusion

FOCUS projects 4 professional is a standalone FRANZIS application for creating macro photographs with extended depth of field. Its HQ stacking uses 64-bit calculation, Focus-Boost technology increases sharpness, and stacks can contain up to 1,000 focus planes. The software advertises precise alignment and includes automatic alignment, batch processing and manual retouching. It supports RAW input and outputs RAW, TIFF, JPEG and other formats, with a bracketed HDR merge mode. An Adobe Lightroom plug-in is included. FRANZIS lists the application for Mac OS X 10.7 and Windows 10, 8.1, 8 and 7; the product page also presents it for macOS and Windows. The full version is an immediately available download, and a demo version is linked. The listed Vollversion plan costs €20 as a one-time purchase, with an offer price of €20,00 including VAT and a stated UVP of €99,00. The pricing note says from €69. There is no free plan, but a free trial is available. FRANZIS describes its photography products as suitable for beginners and professionals.

FocusFusion is a free Windows application that combines photographs taken at different focus distances into one image with greater depth of field. It provides depthmap and wavelet focus-stacking algorithms, automatic alignment, and manual retouching. Depthmap expects images ordered front-to-back or back-to-front and can struggle with translucency or complex overlaps. Wavelet accepts images in any order, but may increase noise, create artifacts at sharp luminance transitions, or reduce alignment quality. Processing uses at least 16-bit precision per channel. Supported inputs are TIFF up to 48 bpp, 16-bit-per-channel JPEG XR, and classic 8-bit JPEG; RAW files are not supported. A clone-based retouching tool offers adjustable brush size, hardness, and opacity, with cloning at 16-bit quality. FocusFusion requires Windows 10, an SSE4.1 CPU made after 2008, and at least 8 GB of memory; 16 GB is recommended for deeper stacks or larger DSLR images. It is distributed through the Windows Store.