Windows
Windows · 64-bit installer
Version 2026.10.19e
spikersoft-stacker-2026.10.19e-setup-windows-x86_64.exe
DownloadCode-signed by SpikerSoft Solutions LLC. SmartScreen may still ask about a brand-new release.
- Windows
- macOS
- Linux
Free 30-day evaluation · $39.99 license
SpikerSoft Stacker
Focus stacking for field biology and macro photography
Fuse every image of a focus-bracketed stack into one all-in-focus photograph — thirteen fusion engines, a full-resolution retouch brush, per-pixel provenance, Darwin Core identification, and one-click publishing to your SpikerSoft gallery and blog.
Free to evaluate for 30 days with no limits. After that Stacker keeps working in free mode — stacks of up to 15 images and a small movable SpikerSoft QR on exports. A one-time license removes both.
SpikerSoft Stacker is made and sold by Spiker Software LLC, a for-profit company separate from the SpikerSoft nonprofit. Purchases are from Spiker Software LLC and are not charitable gifts.
Stack
Turn a series of photos into one ultra-detailed photograph. The butterfly above went through these eight stages, in this order — every one on your own machine.
- GPU acceleratedRuns on your own machine — GPU-accelerated where it helps, with a CPU path for every step.
- Best resultsA tripod, steady light and focus steps that overlap. Your photos stay on your machine until you choose to publish.
- 1CaptureOptional
- 2Images
- 3Align
- 4Crop
- 5Stack
- 6Touch up
- 7Finish
- 8Publish
- 1
Capture
Optional
Tether an OM System camera over USB (macOS and Linux) or Wi-Fi — on your home network or the camera's own — with live view, Bluetooth wake and focus bracketing driven by the body or stepped by the app. Or import RAW (ORF, DNG, NEF, CR2, CR3, ARW, RAF), TIFF, PNG and JPEG frames from any camera.
Already have your photos? Start at Images.
CamerasOM System tether over USB or Wi-Fi — or import from any camera - 2
Images
Every frame laid out for review. OM System files open with instant previews from their embedded JPEGs and sort by focus step, and a curation pass flags duplicate focus steps before you stack.
File typesORF · DNG · NEF · CR2 · CR3 · ARW · RAF · TIFF · PNG · JPEG - 3
Align
Sub-pixel registration corrects the focus breathing and hand-held drift between frames.
PrecisionSub-pixel registration - 4
Crop
The area every aligned frame shares is found automatically and baked into the stack at 16 bits.
Output16-bit, the shared area found automatically - 5
Stack
Thirteen fusion engines, ranked best-first, pick the sharpest detail from every frame — with per-pixel provenance and confidence you can inspect.
Fusion engines13, ranked best-first, with per-pixel provenance - 6
Touch up
Paint detail back into the result at full 16-bit resolution — from any source frame, another engine's result or a kept Matrix result — with clone, darken and lighten brushes, two synced views, undo, and an engine-disagreement overlay that shows where to look.
BrushesClone · Darken · Lighten — two synced views, undo
- 7
Finish
Denoise, deblur, sharpen, 2× super-resolution and stamp — then export a 16-bit TIFF, JPEG, PNG or AVIF, Instagram-ready share slides, or a pan video. Batch mode runs whole folders unattended.
Export16-bit TIFF · JPEG · PNG · AVIF · share slides · pan video - 8
Publish
From the Finish stage, optionally sign in and send the stack, its source frames, and Darwin Core identification to your SpikerSoft gallery and blog — with a public share page and QR badge if you want one.
Publishes toYour SpikerSoft gallery and blog — share page and QR badge optional
Download
One self-contained build per platform, refreshed with every release. Nothing to install alongside it — the download is free.
macOS
macOS 11 or later · Apple Silicon and Intel (universal)
Version 2026.10.19e
spikersoft-stacker-2026.10.19e-macos-universal.dmg
DownloadSigned and notarized for Gatekeeper — opens without warnings.
Linux
Linux · 64-bit AppImage — mark it executable, then run
Version 2026.10.19e
spikersoft-stacker-2026.10.19e-linux-x86_64.AppImage
DownloadThe RAW decoder rides inside the AppImage; nothing else to install.
Free to download and use — no key needed to start, and nothing is held back during the 30-day evaluation. Afterwards Stacker runs in free mode: a stack holds up to 15 images and exports carry a small movable SpikerSoft QR until you add a license. Sign in inside the app only if you want to publish or to pick up your license.
Stacker looks for a newer build when it starts, at most once a day, and you can turn that off. You choose when to download it — to your Downloads folder, checked against our signed release manifest — and when to install.
On first launch Stacker registers an anonymous one-way hash of your computer so the evaluation period survives a reinstall. No name, email or IP address is stored with it. If you sign in, the computer is linked to your account so the two share one evaluation clock. The evaluation is per person and per computer — whichever started first. Each download is recorded with your IP address (deleted after 90 days) and an approximate location, so we can count downloads.
One license, all your computers
Thirty days with nothing held back. Then free mode: 15 images per stack and the QR S · SpikerSoft mark on exports — a one-time license lifts both for good.
$39.99one-time · one account · every computer you sign in on
Spiker Software LLC contributes $9.99 of every license to the SpikerSoft rewards pool that pays members toward their trips. See where every dollar goes.
Seller: Spiker Software LLC. Sign in or create an account and the key lives in your profile — or buy as a guest and we email it to you. Refunds revoke the license; the rewards-pool contribution is not refundable as cash. Lost a key you bought as a guest?
What the license does
- Removes the 15-image cap and makes the QR S · SpikerSoft layer optional on prints, pan videos, share slides and publishes — for good
- Works offline: the app keeps a signed 90-day lease and renews it on its own whenever it is online
- Your key is always yours to find again in your profile — paste it on any computer, signed in or not
Publishing, the sponsorship QR and the share-page QR need a SpikerSoft account, never a license. Earned a license through the bug bounty? Link the code on your profile.
Refer a friend with your photos
When you are signed in, the QR S code on your exports is also your referral link. When someone scans it and buys a license, $5.00 goes into your trip fund.
- 1Sign in inside Stacker — your QR S now points at spikersoft.com/stacker?ref=you.
- 2Share your stacks anywhere: prints, slides, pan videos. The code rides along while the QR S layer is on — with a license, leave it on to keep referring.
- 3A scan that turns into a license sends $5.00 from the SpikerSoft rewards pool to your trip fund. No limit.
Referral rewards need an approved sponsorship profile and are paid toward travel, never as cash. Self-referrals earn nothing.See everything you can earn.
Found a bug? Earn a license.
Bug reports make Stacker better. Report what you find from inside the app and the license can be on us.
- 1In Stacker, open Help › Report a Bug… and describe what went wrong. Diagnostics and the recent log ride along unless you untick Include diagnostics; anonymous reports are welcome.
- 2Sign in first so the report is yours — only reports made while signed in count toward a license.
- 3Staff review every report in the support inbox and mark it accepted, a duplicate, or something we could not reproduce.
- 4Three accepted bug reports — or one report that led to an implemented enhancement — earn a one-use license gift code. It is emailed to you and shown on your profile.
The code is yours to use or to give — it works once; link it to an account to make it yours.
Duplicates, reports we cannot reproduce and anonymous reports do not count. The staff decision on each report is final. A license earned this way keeps a 14-day offline lease rather than 90, so the app needs to go online at least that often.
Practice stacks
No macro rig yet? Stacker fetches these real focus-bracketed captures for you — open Help › Practice Stacks… inside the app and fuse your first photograph in minutes.
Butterfly — 37-frame focus bracket
Straight from the camera's focus bracketing: 37 raw frames stepped from front to back through the subject. Import them, let Stacker develop and align them, then compare the stacking engines.
Captured by Joey Spiker
The app downloads a pack on demand into Pictures › SpikerSoft Stacker › Samples; nothing to unzip.
Built for the mission
Built for field biology, useful for any macro photographer.
Thirteen fusion engines
Fine Detail, Depth Aware, Balanced, Sharp Regions, Edge Detail and eight more — each named for the result it gives, ranked best-first from real stacks, and reordered by your own matrix runs.
Matrix mode
Sweep every engine across its settings overnight, browse the results as a gallery, step through outputs with the zoom held still, A/B any two, and keep the winners as extra result slots.
Scientific provenance
A TIFF export can carry a processing record beside it — parameters, per-frame transforms, SHA-256 hashes of every source file — and a science bundle saves the fused image exactly as the engine produced it, with provenance, confidence and depth rasters.
Darwin Core identification
Identify the specimen when you publish, in proper dwc: fields — scientific name and taxonomy, locality and coordinates, event date, sex and life stage — so the record on your gallery and share page is ready for journals and aggregators.
Review tools
Per-pixel source-frame provenance, confidence overlays, and engine-disagreement heatmaps direct your review to the pixels that need it.
Share sets and pan video
Slice a stack into Instagram-ready carousel slides with per-slide stamp placement, or render a slow, eased pan across the full-resolution image as an MP4.
Camera control
Tether OM System cameras — developed and tested on the OM-1 Mark II — over USB (macOS and Linux) or Wi-Fi, with live view, Bluetooth wake and focus bracketing: from the body's own drive, or stepped by the app over the camera's Wi-Fi in uniform, recorded steps.
Your machine, your pace
Stacking runs entirely on your computer. The GPU (Metal, Vulkan, DX12) speeds up alignment, previews and some of the engines, always with an identical CPU path, and a battery-saver mode trades speed for power — on Apple Silicon by moving the work to the efficiency cores — with identical output. The interface comes in 16 languages.
Free to use — with an optional account
Every stage works without an account. Signing in inside the app with your SpikerSoft account adds:
Without an account
- Every stage: capture, align, stack, touch up, finish — and Matrix mode
- Finished TIFF / JPEG / PNG / AVIF exports and pan videos with your own stamp
- 30-day trial with no limits and no SpikerSoft QR; afterwards free mode — 15 images per stack and a small movable QR S · SpikerSoft on exports — until you add a license
Signed in adds
- Publish stacks straight to your photo gallery — source frames, final image, and full processing provenance
- Create blog posts and public share pages with Darwin Core specimen identification
- Picks up your license automatically — the SpikerSoft QR becomes optional on every export
- Your own two QR layers: QR 1 to your sponsorship page, QR 2 to the photo's share page
Connect the app
- 1Open SpikerSoft Stacker and click Sign in (top right).
- 2Sign in with spikersoft.com — if your browser is already signed in, it just confirms and returns to the app.
- 3Publish your first stack from the Finish stage — Publish to spikersoft.com…
Photos published from Stacker can be offered for exclusive purchase — the proceeds fund member travel.See where every dollar goes.
Ready to stack?
Download the build for your platform and fuse your first stack in minutes. Thirty days with no limits, free mode after — and a one-time $39.99 license lifts the 15-image cap and the QR mark for good.