CS5/LR3/PKS2/PTGUI (all up-to-date versions) + Canon 40D
Any suggestions for a do-able and efficient work-flow for stitching using the above?
I like to do a lot stitched images. Some are simple 2 - 3 images, but I also have bunch from my Christmas vacation where I went crazy with a 200 mm lens and so we are talking multiple rows, with large number of photos (a couple of these that come to mind with 57 and 105 shots for example).
I do all my initial tweaks in Lightroom (W/B, noise, color, ...). I'd like to defer the capture sharpening to PKS2 if possible (more on that later) but if not do-able in an efficient (i.e., batch-controlled manner) I will use LR's sharpening algorithms as at least I can Sync these with all the other tweaks at a single time.
PTGUI I find does not handle CR2 files very well, either because I haven't figured out yet how to get it to properly recognize changes made in LR3/Raw Converter or because it simply cannot (stitched Output using CR2 files looks like crap, color noise and color saturation in particular are awful). So with PTGUI, I find I need to work with TIFFs. That means I need to open up all the photos in CS5, not that big a deal with 2-3-10 photos, but with 50 - 100 = UGH. Particularly if all I want it to do at that point is Save as TIFF. I have noticed that the act of selecting all photos I want to work on in LR, Edit in CS5, will lead to LR making a TIFF File with an edit suffix for each photo. But also gets CS5 trying to open each of these files up which gags the system.
Question 1: Is there a short-cut/batch method in LR3 to simply save files as a TIFF w/o needing to bring CS5 into the process? <-- this alone would save a lot of time to what I am currently burdened with in terms of a work flow.
I stated above I'd like to use PKS2 to do the capture sharpening if possible over LR3
Question 2a: Any way from LR3 to initiate some form of batch subroutine that takes all 50 - 100 files, opens each up individually in CS5, applies PKS capture sharpening (even by calling a pre-made action in CS5 to do this (which could also do the save as tiff asked about in Question 1))
Question 2b: Given the intent is to stitch multiple images together at a later stage, with PKS2, is there any danger of getting noticeably different sharpening effects across photos by utilizing the auto-sharpen features in a batch process where these photos are later stitched. Because I would assume the algorithm looks at each photo on its own merits and decides such and such is the proper sharpening to use for that photo. Where I am trying to go with this question, is say, Photo 1 has lots of flowing water, with a little in the way of fine detail (trees/leaves, rocks), while by the time photo 5 comes around it has lots of fine detail with say a little bit of flowing water. Is the sharpening applied (with the automated type sharpening) to the flowing water portions of each of these photos going to be roughly equivalent across the photos, while the sharpening to the finer detailed stuff on the different photos also going to be about the same (though different compared to the flowing water sharpening)?
