A while ago in the "techniques" section we discussed combining images to gain depth-of field. I had mentioned my search for software that could help automate the process, and was very pleased with Helicon Focus. This type of picture is precisely the reason I was on that quest. This is a cyclops (a ventral view) taken with a 10X objective. It's just not possible to record all the fine detail in a single exposure because the subject is so "deep" and DOF so shallow. It would have been a nightmare to try to do this in Photoshop (especially the apendages at the top of the image!) . But it took less than minute to combine 24 images with the program, and "clean-up" was pretty minimal.