Panorama Stitching - Photoshop vs PTgui

[LesPalenik]

Over the weekend I compared stitching of a 9-image 360-degree panorama by PS CS5 and PTGui 11.9.
Photoshop rendition took much longer and the resulting image wasn't as sharp as the one generated by PTGui.
The 24MP source images were captured by Canon 6DII and a 20mm Canon lens.

The full size panorama is about 22,000 x 6300 pixels, and the 100% crops are about 700x500 pixels each (left half by PS, right half by PTGui) .

[kers]

.. and ptGui is far far more flexible and produces the panorama + all the layers.

[LesPalenik]

The difference in sharpness between the two versions is quite noticeable. I wonder whether PTGui applies some sharpening to the final panorama or if Photoshop Photomerge softens it for smoother transitions between the individual segments. 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The difference in sharpness between the two versions is quite noticeable. I wonder whether PTGui applies some sharpening to the final panorama or if Photoshop Photomerge softens it for smoother transitions between the individual segments.

Hi Les,

No, PTGUI just uses better resampling algorithms (you can choose which, but the default one, I believe Lanczos 2, is already better than BiCubic). There might also be some difference between the two with respect to floating point calculations or integer math, but I do not know the inner workings of the versions you compared.

PTGUI also offers more Projection types to choose from, which can affect the amount of stretching/warping of pixels.

Cheers,
Bart

[LesPalenik]

Hi Bart,

For that picture, since I shot only one row, I used cylindrical projection.
To get a more complete coverage, in my next few experiments, I will shoot in multiple rows, and then will try spherical panorama projection.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Comparing PTGui vs. LR/PS is like putting my reading glasses on

[LesPalenik]

The impressive part was that the comparison of the two images was taken from a very tiny section in the far distance. I focused somewhere in the middle and got practically everything in the image quite sharp. Attached is another larger and closer crop, and again PTGui is a way sharper. In all fairness, PS CS5 is now about 10 years old, and PTGUi version 11.9 has been released just this month, so that may play a role, too.

I am very pleased also with the Canon 20mm/2.8 lens. It is very sharp, relatively light and about $250 cheaper than an equivalent Nikon lens.