Stacking is crazy!

Cluke wrote:

I've been following this interesting thread and there are a couple of quick questions I wanted to ask for clarification.

1. I was under the impression (mistaken?) that the handheld nightshot mode is an in-camera stacking process to reduce or eliminate noise in the final image. My own experiments in the past with this have shown that it does reduce noise considerably and it also appears to deliver a slightly sharper image than one taken using P,A or S. Don't let the name of it put you off because it can be used just as easily for daytime shooting and does the same job so I'm not sure what the advantage is of stacking in a software programme compared to this in-camera method. Can anyone advise?

2. I also saw mention of the Microsoft ICE software. I use this quite a lot for stitching panoramas but in examining the programme I don't see any evidence that it can stack and merge shots. The website mentions that it supports Photoshop layers so is this how ICE is used to stack images?

Sorry if these are numpty questions but I'm a bit puzzled at the moment.

Regards

Cluke