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Author Topic: How to fix a wavy horizon  (Read 10234 times)

feppe

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How to fix a wavy horizon
« on: January 16, 2010, 07:32:09 am »

I have a stitched panorama with a wavy horizon which is driving me nuts. I can't get it to straighten in stitching (please don't suggest any of the million tutorials online, I've tried), so I'll have to fix it in PS.

It should be a snap with Liquify, but it doesn't give me a level reference! Guides or Grid don't show up in liquify so I don't have a flat reference point. The waviness is subtle enough to make eyeballing it not feasible, but visible enough to aggravate me to no end. Any tips other than taping a ruler on my monitor which just occurred to me?

Note I'm not talking about leveling, but fixing a wavy horizon. I'm also not looking for advice on fixing it in the stitcher.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2010, 08:45:49 am by feppe »
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PeterAit

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How to fix a wavy horizon
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2010, 08:02:47 am »

Quote from: feppe
I have a stitched panorama with a wavy horizon which is driving me nuts. I can't get it to straighten in stitching (please don't suggest any of the million tutorials online, I've tried), so I'll have to fix it in PS.

It should be a snap with Liquify, but it doesn't give me a level reference! Guides or Grid don't show up in liquify so I don't have a flat reference point. The waviness is subtle enough to make eyeballing it not feasible, but visible enough to aggravate me to no end. Any tips other than taping a ruler on my monitor which just occurred to me?

Note I'm not talking about leveling, but fixing a wavy horizon.

What about adding an empty layer to the image and drawing a straight line on it? Delete the layer when done.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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How to fix a wavy horizon
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2010, 08:18:23 am »

Quote from: feppe
I have a stitched panorama with a wavy horizon which is driving me nuts. I can't get it to straighten in stitching (please don't suggest any of the million tutorials online, I've tried), so I'll have to fix it in PS.

Hi Feppe,

You don't have to fix it in PS when you correctly set your horizon in the stitcher, stitch and crop excess space.  The horizon of the scene is at a different level than the horizon in the stitcher. Which stitcher are you using?

One can alway do extra work in Photoshop, but I try to limit that as much as possible. I you really want to fix it the hard way in postprocessing, look at Filter>Distort>Displace... in Photoshop.

Cheers,
Bart
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feppe

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How to fix a wavy horizon
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2010, 08:37:03 am »

Quote from: BartvanderWolf
Hi Feppe,

You don't have to fix it in PS when you correctly set your horizon in the stitcher, stitch and crop excess space.  The horizon of the scene is at a different level than the horizon in the stitcher. Which stitcher are you using?

One can alway do extra work in Photoshop, but I try to limit that as much as possible. I you really want to fix it the hard way in postprocessing, look at Filter>Distort>Displace... in Photoshop.

Cheers,
Bart

Yes, I know, but as I said in my OP, fixing it in stitcher (autopano) doesn't work, no matter how much I set the auto-horizon, center the pano, set horizontal guides or delete control points. The image is shot handheld and has extremely poor contrast, making control points sparse - PTGUI doesn't even recognize it as a pano.

I'll try Displace.

walter.sk

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How to fix a wavy horizon
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2010, 11:14:37 am »

Quote from: feppe
Yes, I know, but as I said in my OP, fixing it in stitcher (autopano) doesn't work, no matter how much I set the auto-horizon, center the pano, set horizontal guides or delete control points. The image is shot handheld and has extremely poor contrast, making control points sparse - PTGUI doesn't even recognize it as a pano.

I'll try Displace.
Another wonderful tool that might be helpful is the relatively easy to use Edit>Transform>Warp tool which can be used to adjust a segment of the image with minimal change to the rest of the image.  If that fails, you can try selecting just the segment that needs to be adjusted and putting it on a separate layer, and then using the warp tool only on it, then flattening the image.
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feppe

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How to fix a wavy horizon
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2010, 12:06:49 pm »

Quote from: walter.sk
Another wonderful tool that might be helpful is the relatively easy to use Edit>Transform>Warp tool which can be used to adjust a segment of the image with minimal change to the rest of the image.  If that fails, you can try selecting just the segment that needs to be adjusted and putting it on a separate layer, and then using the warp tool only on it, then flattening the image.

Thank you - that did the trick!

walter.sk

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How to fix a wavy horizon
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2010, 07:07:40 pm »

Quote from: feppe
Thank you - that did the trick!
I'm glad it worked!
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