Balancing exposures in a panorama series

[PeterAit]

I made the error of taking a couple of panoramas with the camera set to auto exposure, and as a result there are some inconsistencies between frames that show up in the final pano. I want to tweak the exposure in LR do even things out. What's the best way to do this? My thought is to pick the same spot in the overlapping part of the photos and adjust exposure until the RGB values are the same, but is there a better way?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I almost always shoot my panoramas on auto and Photoshop never had problems in evening it out.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I almost always shoot my panoramas on auto and Photoshop never had problems in evening it out.

I agree with Slobodan that many differences can and will be automatically evened out in a good blending engine. It does however depend a bit on the lenses used,and the amount of overlap. So I'd just give it a try, and only if needed do a manual correction before the actual blending.

A possible approach is to use two layers in Photoshop, draw a selection in the overlap region, and try to match the median value of one layer (e.g. the lower one) with the other layer, by using an Exposure adjustment layer in between the two. The match will be closest if the images are already aligned/warped, but even doing it on the originals before alignment should get you close enough for the blending engine to do the rest (vignetting, lightfall-off, etc.).

Cheers,
Bart

[kirkt]

In LR you could select a good reference exposure image and then the "bad" improperly exposed images and use the "Match Total Exposures" command in the Settings menu while in the develop module.  Select the good exposure first and then the bad exposures next - the first selected image appears to become the reference exposure and the rest of the images get matched to it.

This assumes that the total exposure is, on average, supposed to be the same across the images.

kirk

[PeterAit]

The Match Total Exposure command did the trick, at least for this image. I am using PT GUI and I am surprised it didn't do a better job of blending.

I was going to try Photoshop's Merge to Panorama tool but the command is grayed out when I select all the images and select Edit In. Any ideas why this is?

Thanks for the advice.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The Match Total Exposure command did the trick, at least for this image.

Hi Peter,

That's a bit puzzling, since the auto exposure from your camera already did something similar, I assume.

I am using PT GUI and I am surprised it didn't do a better job of blending.

That's also puzzling, because it usually does an excellent job, and allows to adjust exposures for a better blend.

I was going to try Photoshop's Merge to Panorama tool but the command is grayed out when I select all the images and select Edit In. Any ideas why this is?

Were they layered in a single file?

Cheers,
Bart

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

An example:

[GarethC7]

It's funny, I have been putting off doing this as I shot a HDR pano to complicate matters even further. A couple of years ago (before I was using LR) I shot a pano from the top of the Empire State Building and had to go back to Photoshop and manually adjust each exposure in RAW to match and then merge. I'll try this method with my HDR pano, thanks guys.

[Ellis Vener]

"I am using PT GUI and I am surprised it didn't do a better job of blending."

Hi Peter, Glad that solved your problem. Which version of PTGui are you using? How much overlapping coverage is there between adjacent frames?

[PeterAit]

"I am using PT GUI and I am surprised it didn't do a better job of blending."

Hi Peter, Glad that solved your problem. Which version of PTGui are you using? How much overlapping coverage is there between adjacent frames?

I am using the latest PTGui - just downloaded last week. I try to overlap frames by about 1/3. I am getting some great results now, so whatever the problem was seems to have fixed itself.