Having Fun With Panoramas

[dreed]

If there is one thing that bothers me about stitching it is that it cannot (yet) be done with raw images - are there any whispers or quiet mumblings of anyone trying to resolve that problem or is it considered unsolvable?

And if it is unsolvable, is it because of the Bayer Matrix or ...?

The other question I have is about doing exposure, etc, adjustment prior to export rather than after importing the merged result. If 16bit TIFF is being used as the intermediary what sort of loss should I expect if I do postpone the exposure, etc, adjustments to after the stitching?

[Kevin Raber]

Well from what I understand about stitching is you need pixels and RAWs are not really pixels until they have been processed.  The bayer pattern has nothing to do with it.  The photomerge applications look for matching pixels and then makes decisions what to use and throw out regarding the stitch.  As I said in the article look at the layers and click the eye button to make layers visible or not and see the way the program has decided to use pieces of the image.  Since a RAW file is just data it would be very hard to do.

Also, as I mention in the article it is best to get as much from the RAW as possible prior to output.  So, make adjustments on color, overall exposure, contrast and saturation, even a bit of highlight and shadow recovery prior to output.  Do not crop, try any lens corrections or perspective corrections.  Make sure the same corrections are applied to all images. This will certainly mess up the stitch.  You can then as I showed do adjustments to tweak the look after the final file is complete.

Kevin Raber

[Adam L]

I'm surprised you flattened the image instead of turning it into a smart object.   Was it to simplify the lesson or is there a benefit to flattening?

[Kevin Raber]

As I said in the article sometimes I turn it into a smart object.  Flattening just make it smaller and more controllable size wise.  To keep the article simple without introducing what could be a whole other subject I just mention it.  I have smart objects on a topic list as a lot of people don't quite understand them.

[dreed]

Also, as I mention in the article it is best to get as much from the RAW as possible prior to output.  So, make adjustments on color, overall exposure, contrast and saturation, even a bit of highlight and shadow recovery prior to output.  Do not crop, try any lens corrections or perspective corrections.  Make sure the same corrections are applied to all images. This will certainly mess up the stitch.  You can then as I showed do adjustments to tweak the look after the final file is complete.

Is there anything to gain by pushing the histogram of the pre-merged pictures as far to the right as possible (collectively) in a manner similar to ETTR with the view that some post work will be needed and is better supported by having more data?

[David Watson]

Hi

I always use raw files as the source for a panorama and hadn't really thought about converting first.  If you select in LR you can export the LR adjusted images directly to the Pano facility in PS.  This means that you can adjust the WB etc in LR and then do the stitching from the LR adjusted raw file in PS (which presumable converts each file to a TIFF before merging).

Kevin - I note that you are using the arbitrary rotation in PS followed by a crop.  Were you aware that if you move the cursor outside the image in crop mode that you can swivel rotate the image to level?  You probably are and had a reason not to do this but just saying....

[Colorado David]

I followed the same procedure as above and ended up with the stitched picture seen below.  This was shot with a Nikon D8000e and I enjoyed a cup of coffee while the stitching was going on in Photoshop.  The new stitched image was huge and full of incredible detail.

Hey Kevin, when do the rest of us get to have a D8000e?

[lmwacctg]

Thanks for a great article. I've been shooting panos for a number of years now and have developed my own workflow over time. Your article provided me with a few good tips I'd like to try. I tend not to use smart objects as the file sizes  slow processing down too much for my liking. These mini how-to's really enhance the experience at LULA!

Regards

Don

[EarlVonTapia]

If there is one thing that bothers me about stitching it is that it cannot (yet) be done with raw images - are there any whispers or quiet mumblings of anyone trying to resolve that problem or is it considered unsolvable?

Microsoft ICE lets you drag and drop DNGs into it, after which it stitches them together. I'm not sure if other RAW formats are supported. Output is in another format (TIFF, JPG, other) however.

[Isaac]

Microsoft ICE lets you drag and drop DNGs into it… I'm not sure if other RAW formats are supported.

Oh! I never thought to try that!
I just dragged 5 .arw (Sony raw files) and MS ICE created a composite.

However I think I'll continue to exploit the extra flexibility in the conversion from raw to tiff (currently using RawTherapee) before stitching.

[Chris Kern]

The 1848 sequence of daguerreotypes depicting the Cincinnati, Ohio (USA), waterfront by Charles Fontayne and William Porter is one of my favorite images of all time.  I suspect it would be difficult to exceed the level of detail (it required a microscope to reveal it) with current capture technology.  In 2010, Wired published an interactive image viewer that allows users to explore the eight-image panorama.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

It would be to messy and would not offer any benefits. Autopanon Pro can handle raw files but it cannot output to raw.

One way to handle raw would be to use parametric editing, but it would be messy.

Also, it is probably best to handle chromatic aberration before merging into panoramics. Programs like Autopano Pro really handle distortion, so that would not be an issue. It is probably best to apply a decent amount of capture sharpening before locating control points.

My guess is that the technique would simply be to complex to work realiably.

The way I handle this is that I export my images as 16 bit tiffs with very conservative settings and merge to a 16 bit tiff and apply final adjustments to the merged image.

Best regards
Erik

If there is one thing that bothers me about stitching it is that it cannot (yet) be done with raw images - are there any whispers or quiet mumblings of anyone trying to resolve that problem or is it considered unsolvable?

And if it is unsolvable, is it because of the Bayer Matrix or ...?

The other question I have is about doing exposure, etc, adjustment prior to export rather than after importing the merged result. If 16bit TIFF is being used as the intermediary what sort of loss should I expect if I do postpone the exposure, etc, adjustments to after the stitching?

[Schewe]

If there is one thing that bothers me about stitching it is that it cannot (yet) be done with raw images - are there any whispers or quiet mumblings of anyone trying to resolve that problem or is it considered unsolvable?

Aside from what Kev said...yes, there are some "whispers" and "quiet mumblings" regarding doing panos (and HDRs) from multiple raw files. But, nothing that can, as yet be reported...suffice to say that there are some pretty smart guys that have been working on these "issues"...but, it'll take some time.

So, best advice? Learn how to shoot HDR and panos...and know (expect) that some "bright boys™" might come up with some useful solutions that will resolve a lot of issues.

Some of the best digital photographers are also software developers...

[OldRoy]

Autofocus? Really? Having shot and stitched probably something close to a thousand panoramas of all kinds (PTGuiPro) I'd say this is asking for trouble.
Roy
Edit: Obviously this depends very much on the subject.

[dreed]

Aside from what Kev said...yes, there are some "whispers" and "quiet mumblings" regarding doing panos (and HDRs) from multiple raw files. But, nothing that can, as yet be reported...suffice to say that there are some pretty smart guys that have been working on these "issues"...but, it'll take some time.

So, best advice? Learn how to shoot HDR and panos...and know (expect) that some "bright boys™" might come up with some useful solutions that will resolve a lot of issues.

Some of the best digital photographers are also software developers...

Can I click "Like" for this comment?

On a more serious note, something that I have noticed is that PS stitching might be the best for colour but it doesn't always get the de-warping 100% correct. Prior to this article, I had been using Microsoft's "ICE" tool to do panoramas and whilst it seems to get the rotations down pat, it's not very good with colour - especially highlights and shadows (even when using TIFF).

Are there any other panorama stitching applications that people recommend?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Are there any other panorama stitching applications that people recommend?

Hi,

PTGUI is very robust and allows a fast yet accurate workflow, but also can solve difficult issues if a bit more time is allotted to the task, or the free Hugin. Autopano Pro/Giga is also not bad when it can automatically find a good solution (it gets a bit complex when trying to correct errors).

Of all the above, PTGUI (Professional) gives me the most reliable results (also for 360 degree VR scenes), so it's usually my first choice when I have to stitch something, and it is very fast (the current beta Version 10 uses GPU hardware acceleration).

Cheers,
Bart

[dreed]

Hi,

PTGUI is very robust and allows a fast yet accurate workflow, but also can solve difficult issues if a bit more time is allotted to the task, or the free Hugin. Autopano Pro/Giga is also not bad when it can automatically find a good solution (it gets a bit complex when trying to correct errors).

Of all the above, PTGUI (Professional) gives me the most reliable results (also for 360 degree VR scenes), so it's usually my first choice when I have to stitch something, and it is very fast (the current beta Version 10 uses GPU hardware acceleration).

Cheers,
Bart

Well I've thus far tried Autopano and it appears to give me better results with warping than PS... will have to try PTGUI too...

[Kevin Raber]

Like I said we will be covering a number of alternative methods for doing panos in subsequent articles.  There are a lot of choices.  And, to my knowledge on RAW processing like Jeff said there are a number of good and bright people working on both HDR and Panos from RAW.  But, the way I understand it now is that when you drag RAWS into any of these programs a temporary tiff or jpeg file is made so that there are pixels to work with.  Alignment and such s all based on pixels and you don't get pixels until the RAW file is processed.  I will confer with brighter minds on this, but this is my understanding.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Well I've thus far tried Autopano and it appears to give me better results with warping than PS... will have to try PTGUI too...

Hi,

One of the big differences is that Photoshop requires all full size images to be loaded as layers (with masks) which takes a lot of memory, and another is the lack of choice between the very good resampling algorithms that dedicated stitchers have to offer, and the limited projection options. It's a bit too much of a black box.

Cheers,
Bart

[tomrock]

Thanks for this article. Just knowing how to hold the camera and pivot helps a lot.