If the username in the license key looks odd, and the Enter button stays gray when you paste in your license key, try just retyping the name to match what you entered when you purchased the license. If that doesn't work, then please contact support@zerenesystems.com and we'll get the problem taken care of.
On some Windows systems, special folders such as "My Documents" are erroneously marked as "Read Only". Most applications never notice, but Zerene Stacker honors the "Read Only" status for these folders and refuses to create files or new folders in them.
One cure for this problem is to use an arcane Windows command to clear the "Read Only" status for those folders. Simply open a Command Prompt window (using for example Start > Run... > cmd), then type the following commands:
attrib -r "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents"It is only necessary to run these commands one time.
attrib -r "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures"
Alternatively, you can use Windows Explorer to create new folders, which Zerene Stacker can then write into.
TIFF files in excess of 70 MB may provoke a bug in the Java runtime system that is diagnosed like this:
Trying to read <filename>
Exception occurred during event dispatching:
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
at java.io.RandomAccessFile.readBytes(Native Method)
If you encounter this error, go to Options > Preferences > Preprocessing and place a checkmark to select "Use External TIFF Reader".
Simply installing the ZoneAlarm Toolbar may reduce the maximum Zerene Stacker memory allocation by several hundred megabytes. This is due to address space fragmentation caused by one of the Toolbar DLLs. ZoneAlarm has been notified of the problem, but at present their only workaround is to un-install the Toolbar.
If you add physical memory to your computer after running Zerene Stacker, the added memory will not be seen automatically by Zerene Stacker.
To correct this problem, simply go to Options > Preferences > Memory Usage. First press Detect, then press Set Automatically to determine the maximum amount of memory that the computer will allow Zerene Stacker to use.
In the unlikely event that added physical memory is still not seen, or if the automatically detected value is not correct, then enter the proper value by hand before pressing Set Automatically.
In versions prior to T201001162110, the workaround for this problem was to manually edit a configuration file. We strongly recommend upgrading to a current version.
This problem is believed to be fixed as of version 1.02 build T201008081620. Please let us know if you encounter it again!
As a workaround in earlier versions, simply turn down the setting for graphics acceleration on your video card. On Windows XP, the recipe is Start > Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Troubleshoot tab > Hardware acceleration, move slider and Apply. At a setting of None, the brush should move smoothly, with several updates per second even when the brush is a hundred pixels across. Try that so you can see how it works, then select the highest setting that works that well or better.
To find orphaned projects, simply search your disk for directories or folders whose name begins with "unnamedZSproj". The full name will be something like "unnamedZSproj20090707122911640", where the trailing digits are a timestamp (year, month, day, etc). Remove these directories and all their contents. On Windows, you will have to select the option to "include hidden files and folders" so that the Windows Explorer Search function will find projects in the system's temporary directory where they are normally placed.
The underlying issue here is that if Zerene Stacker crashes or is aborted by the operating system while it has image files loaded, then the project it was working on will be retained on disk and may consume significant space. If the project had never been saved to a specified location, it is likely to be located in a directory of temporary files where it won't be obvious. Especially on Windows, these orphaned projects may be retained for long periods, since the operating system does not clean up temporary files very often.
When you Add File(s), you may receive a popup window that looks something like the following:
If you proceed without pre-sizing and without increasing the memory allocation, then you are likely to encounter the following error:
If your computer is large enough, then the cure for this problem is to allocate more memory using Options > Preferences > Memory Usage.
Very large images (above 21 megapixels) may require using the 64-bit version of Zerene Stacker, on a 64-bit operating system.
Under most circumstances, the Options > Preferences > Memory Usage control panel will prevent you from specifying a larger memory allocation than your computer can actually support. Under unusual circumstances it is possible to specify too large a value. In this case, subsequent launches of Zerene Stacker will fail with some diagnostic like "The application ZereneStacker quit unexpectedly."
The simplest cure for this problem is the following: Download and install a fresh copy of Zerene Stacker. Launch it. You will receive a diagnostic popup that says "Memory allocation has been reset following a software update. You must exit and re-launch the application to use the new allocation." Do not exit the application at this time! Instead, proceed to Options > Preferences > Memory Usage, click the Set Automatically button, then click the OK button. Exit the application, re-launch, and everything should be fine again.
In very rare cases, the re-launch may fail because the computer cannot allocate the amount of memory that the Set Automatically button requests. If this occurs, then repeat the previous procedure, but instead of clicking Set Automatically, simply type the value 1000 into the field labeled "Megabytes of memory currently allocated to 32-bit Zerene Stacker". Click OK, exit, and re-launch.
On Windows, the uninstaller program removes only folders and files that it created. This causes some state information to be retained, so that uninstall/reinstall will not restore the program to a factory-fresh condition. To get back to a factory-fresh condition, you must uninstall, then manually remove one folder and the files it contains, before reinstalling.
The folder you need to remove is in the "application data" area of your profile. Go to Start > Run and open %appdata%. This will open a Windows Explorer to view a directory named something like "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data". Within that directory, select and delete the folder named ZereneStacker.
On Macintosh OS X, dragging the application bundle to the trash leaves behind some state information in other files and folders, so that reinstalling the program will not restore the program to a factory-fresh condition. To get back to a factory-fresh condition, you must manually remove one folder and the files it contains, before reinstalling. The folder you need to remove is ~/Library/Preferences/ZereneStacker, where ~ denotes your account's home directory. Be careful that you do not remove other folders in ~/Library/Preferences, as these contain settings for other programs.
On Linux, it is the same situation except that the folder you need to remove is ~/.ZereneStacker (note the dot -- this directory is normally "hidden").
Note: In all recent versions, you can drag-and-drop directly onto the input files list. There is no need to File > Add Files to open a filechooser as described below.
The Java filechooser currently used by Zerene Stacker does not display alternate volumes like the native Mac filechooser does. External drives can still be accessed, but the procedure is somewhat awkward.
On OS X 10.5 (Leopard), the easiest approach is to open a filechooser dialog box in Zerene Stacker, using File > Add Files. Then separately, use Finder to open the external drive or network share, go to the appropriate directory, and select the files of interest. Drag and drop those files onto the Add Files dialog of Zerene Stacker, then click the Add button in the Zerene Stacker dialog. This method also has the advantage of showing you a thumbnail preview of the files to be added.
Alternatively (and required for OS X 10.4), you can go to the bar at the top of the window, the one where the current directory is shown. Click once on that bar and it will expand into a pull-down list of enclosing directories. At the bottom of the list will be an entry like "Macintosh HD", representing the main file system of the computer. Click that. Scroll to the bottom of the list and double-click on Volumes. That should give you a list of all your currently mounted media. Double-click on any external drive to open that, then navigate as usual.
The latter approach is required on OS X 10.4 because drag-and-drop into the Zerene Stacker filechooser does not work on that system.
On PowerPC systems, most TIFF files are slow to read and 16-bit TIFF files are particularly bad. At this time the only workaround on PowerPC systems is to make copies of your TIFF files as highest quality JPEG, converting 16-bit to 8-bit if necessary, then stack the JPEG copies.
Intel Macs should read TIFF files quickly (seconds per image), if Options > Preferences > Preprocessing > Use External TIFF Reader is selected. This is the default setting. If this option is not selected, then some types of TIFF files will read very slowly (minutes per image), although well-behaved TIFF files will read somewhat faster than with the default setting.
The root cause of this problem is unclear. Such files read OK on Windows, but not on Mac. One workaround is to use Photoshop or some other image editing tool to remove the profile entirely, or to assign or convert the profile to sRGB ("sRGB IEC61966-2.1"), which appears to be an equivalent profile with a different name. TIFF files with the Nikon profile are read correctly.