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Author Topic: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch  (Read 6320 times)

garyhill

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Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« on: June 24, 2013, 09:54:39 am »

I am in need of some advice on how to hide some seams in a panoramic stitch. The attached file shows my problem. Most of the seams are okay but the two seams in the water to the left of the image are quite visible. I have tried using the clone stamp with a soft edge and dialling down the opacity but the results are very average. I have also tried the healing brush tool, patch tool, content aware fill but none seem to work all that well.

Any suggestions on techniques / settings to use would be most welcome.

Cheers,

Gary

Landscape Photography by Gary Hill
www.nghill.net/garyhill

Justan

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2013, 11:33:53 am »

Panos of water can be painful to finish for the reasons illustrated very well by your gorgeous capture.

What I do is to add layers and use them to copy and move as much of nearby waves and other water textures as needed so that the distractions are gone. Sometimes I go back to the original pre-stitched images for source content and sometimes I use parts of the stitched composition, or both. After the seams are hidden I fix up colors and shading as needed.

Another approach is to use a very long shutter speed for the captures as that blurs the water and helps to reduce the need for this kind of pp.

Here’s an example. IIRC there are 7 frames taken of water and 3 of land.

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2013, 11:51:41 am »

I am in need of some advice on how to hide some seams in a panoramic stitch. The attached file shows my problem. Most of the seams are okay but the two seams in the water to the left of the image are quite visible. I have tried using the clone stamp with a soft edge and dialling down the opacity but the results are very average. I have also tried the healing brush tool, patch tool, content aware fill but none seem to work all that well.

Any suggestions on techniques / settings to use would be most welcome.

Hi Gary,

I assume you have the individual tiles in multiple layers in Photoshop? If so, how much overlap do you have at the problem area?

Have you tried putting the top layer in Difference blending mode? That should show perfect alignment as black, and poor alignment as lighter. You then in a first attempt draw a seam in the mask of the upper layer along a path that is as dark as possible, and select one side to fill the mask with black to hide and the other side white to reveal. You can then locally add a bit of blur to the seam.

If there are still discontinuities, because the surf crest is at different positions, you can then try and repair that by local warping with e.g. the Puppet Warp tool.

Cheers,
Bart
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garyhill

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2013, 06:23:37 pm »

Justan/Bart thank you for the replys.

I concur about using longer shutter speeds. This is about my 4th or 5th attempt at a panorama at this spot. My first few attempts were with a shutter speed of 1 to 2 seconds and the seams were awful. The shutter speed for these images was about 15 sec and is the best stitch I have so far.

I am using PTGUI for stitiching so I can generate a multiple layer file in Photoshop and there is quite a bit of overlap to work with.

I will try both suggestions and see how I go. Thank you again.

Cheers,

Gary

Landscape Photography by Gary Hill
www.nghill.net/garyhill

BernardLanguillier

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2013, 07:51:23 pm »

Autopano pro/ giga usually does a much better job in such situations.

Now, the real trick is to time captured better, but even that rarely works perfectly. :-)

Long exposures obviously always work, but that is a very different look.

If such images are important to you then nothings beats a 6x17 film camera + drum/Imacon scan. Less detail/more grain but perfect results garanteed!

Cheers,
Bernard

Jim Kasson

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #5 on: June 24, 2013, 08:07:28 pm »

If such images are important to you then nothings beats a 6x17 film camera + drum/Imacon scan. Less detail/more grain but perfect results guaranteed!

Or a Betterlight back and the pano turntable...

Jim

framah

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2013, 03:02:34 pm »

Or a Betterlight back and the pano turntable...

Jim

Except that it will compress the waves or extend them depending on which way the scan is moving.

I'm still waiting for a week off so I can go play with mine. :D
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Justan

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #7 on: June 26, 2013, 12:03:50 pm »


If there are still discontinuities, because the surf crest is at different positions, you can then try and repair that by local warping with e.g. the Puppet Warp tool.

Cheers,
Bart

I haven't played with the puppet warp tool much but will give this a try in the near future. Cool tip!

Isaac

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #8 on: June 26, 2013, 01:04:08 pm »

I seem to recall reading about someones experiment with 3 P&S cameras to take 3 simultaneous overlapping images for stitching.
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garyhill

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2013, 06:51:50 pm »

Thank you for everybodys comments and suggestions. As for a Betterlight back or 17x6 film camera, what can I say but, so many options, so little money, so little time!

Attached is my final version which I am reasonably happy with. Final proof as always will be a large print to see if it holds up to close scrutiny.

Cheers,

Gary

Landscape Photography by Gary Hill
www.nghill.net/garyhill

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Hiding Seams in a Panoramic Stitch
« Reply #10 on: June 28, 2013, 02:49:36 am »

Thank you for everybodys comments and suggestions. As for a Betterlight back or 17x6 film camera, what can I say but, so many options, so little money, so little time!

Attached is my final version which I am reasonably happy with. Final proof as always will be a large print to see if it holds up to close scrutiny.

Hi Gary,

It looks fine at this magnification. The Cylindrical projection works good in this case, even if it warps the shore line.

Cheers,
Bart
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