Helicon Filter - Compared To Photoshop

Compared To Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is one of the most well-known programs for commercial bitmap and image manipulation. It is designed to allow the user a wide range of control over image manipulation and features a wide range of functions and controls. Helicon Filter, on the other hand, is designed for less experienced users while still providing advanced tools needed to improve already existing photographs; menus and toolbars containing edit options are replaced with "filter" tabs, each tab containing labeled edit options. Due to this simplification, Helicon Filter is unable to perform Photoshop's abilities of advanced layer manipulation and graphic creation, and Helicon does not have full selection editing abilities.

An element of Photoshop necessary for advanced image manipulation is use of layers and alpha channel support. Layers allow the user to edit elements of an image individually and to move elements or objects from one image to another. Helicon Filter does not support layers, however two common functions of layers — adding a subject or background from one photograph to another and adding text and frames — can still be performed in Helicon. Using the brushes, one object from an image can be neatly painted into another. Text and frames can also be put into an image using the Frames filter. Even with these workarounds, however, Helicon Filter, due to its lack of layer support, can not do some things that Photoshop can. For example, an object painted in from another picture can not later be moved to a different location in the new picture. (Helicon Soft has mentioned plans to implement layers in upcoming versions.)

Another important element of Photoshop, the acceptance of third-party plugins, is useful in image correction. Plugins are needed to create many effects for an image such as color manipulation, insertion of ripples and other effects, and noise reduction. Although Helicon Filter supports many of these 8BF plugins, they are generally not needed due to the program's built-in features such as noise reduction, aberration removal, perspective adjustment, and so on.

Both Helicon Filter and Adobe Photoshop are able to blend and combine images in several different ways, most notably as multi-exposures and HDRs. One image blend type Photoshop is capable of while Helicon Filter is not is that of panoramic photography. However, Helicon Filter is able to stack several images for noise reduction, while Photoshop is not.

Some features of Helicon Filter which are not found in Photoshop and which contribute to the program's ease of use are its Erase changes brush, its ability to edit, change and undo various aspects of a photo independently, and its edit mapping ability which indicates which areas of a photo will be affected by an edit.

Aside from those differences, both programs share almost all practical functionality for image improvement. For example, both programs are able to retouch images, sharpen them, modify colors, remove red eye, remove aberrations, compensate for lens distortion, and perform many similar functions. Both programs are also able to open and save images from a wide range of formats including the latest RAW formats, PNG and JPEG 2000.