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Doing Panoramas........

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If one wishes to do a 2x3 matrix of shots in landscape orientation, just to achieve higher resolution for printing, would it be easier to just shift the camera laterally and up/down, keeping the sensor plane parallel to the scene, rather than rotating the camera?
 
The limitation of the KIWI+ Spherical is that the distance from the base plate of the camera to the center of the lens cannot exceed 2 1/8 inches. I have been using it with a Coolpix, but it will support my EOS 3, and the size of the new D60, which I have preordered, seems to be in the usable range.

Jack
Terry Deadwyler said:
Terry Deadwyler
jack stephens said:
jack
fotosaccion said:
I own a Canon 1D and am wanting to do some multi-frame panoramics
and stitching but I am not sure what I am doing. It appears that I
have to have aPANORAMIC head to do it right? Am I correct in this
assesment? I took some images last night and attempted to stitch
them together and I got mixed results. My lines were not straight
and I could not seem to get it right. If indeed I do need a pano
head....WHO's????? I've looked on the web at Kaidan, manfrotto and
Peace river studios...... What do most of you use and why??? I
also need to know if I want to do multi row panos.... I am limited
to the Kaidan??? Do most of you only do single row panos??? It is
a considerable price increase in the myulti row arena....

Any advice will be GREATLY appreciated
--
Hector Gomez, LC
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
One could use a tilt-shift lens instead of turning the camera to keep the film plane parallel. These lenses are expensive and don't autofocus but have some unique advantages.

Moving the camera creates all kinds of problems with a non-flat subject. Some panoramas programs have a "scanner mode" since you are sort of acting like a scanner. A big issues is that my moving the camera you are changing the perspective all over the place. The other issue is that you would have to move the camera relaltive to the size of the subject, the bigger the subject, the more you have to move the camera.

The image below is a fairly extreme example "scanning". It is composed of over 50 pictures. I was trying to roughly simulate and orthographic projection (as if taken from very far away). I was also very limited in how far I could back up as there was a row of buildings opposite these. There were all kind of foreground objects in the way like trees that covered up large parts of the buildings. The trees were taken out by shooting from different angles and dealing with perspective issues. It is by no means perfect (I did it over 2 years ago and could do a much better job today).

http://www.fototime.com/ {38478445-98AE-42BD-B46B-76656FFA78F6} picture.JPG
Carl Schofield said:
If one wishes to do a 2x3 matrix of shots in landscape orientation,
just to achieve higher resolution for printing, would it be easier
to just shift the camera laterally and up/down, keeping the sensor
plane parallel to the scene, rather than rotating the camera?
Click to expand...
--Karl
 
Many thanks to Karl, Doug, Brian and everyone else in this most informative thread. I have a few primes and am getting several more so will experiment to see which one's work best for panos and mosaics. May also get a tilt shift but they don't always get the FOV I need in 3 shots. Brian, interesting tip about the 50 1.8 having less distortion than the 1.4...

I've been studying the available stiching software and thanks to all for the tips and recommendations, I want one that does panos and mosaics, does a great job on automatic correcting but has some manual tweakability, and a good interface that does not requre one to be a math genius to achieve professional results. Any comments on the programs listed here?

http://www.panoguide.com/software/recommendations.html

Finally, are you guys using EV lock? How to you handle exposure variances?
Does any of the software help with this?

Thanks again for all the info!!

DJM
brian said:
Correcting distortion in this way is a routine part of my workflow.

Panorama Tools allows you to correct distortion during stitching,
but I find that this can sometimes lead to bizzare and unexpected
results, so I always carefully correct each image before hand using
pre-determined calibration coefficients.

Brian
David James Miller said:
Thanks

DJM
Doug B said:
David James Miller said:
Quick question for you all, what lens do you like for panos and
multi rows?
Click to expand...
Hi David,

It varies by situation but generally I think you can probably get
away with 28mm focal length equivalent for outdoors. Indoors you're
going to need something much wider. I shoot a lot of architectural
interiors, mostly luxury condos, and when my clients ask for VR as
well, I always do it on film with my 20-35mm then scan to Photo CD.
Even so, at 20mm it's a tight fit - as in it provides limited
cropping possibilities for the Art Director. For rooms with
cathedral ceilings or loft-style condos I borrow a friend's
16-35mmL lens. Again I shoot it w/film so you'd have to work out
the digital equivalent. Would love to get my hands on a 14mm
rectilinear just see what it does!
Slightly off topic but while I'm posting to you I thought I'd throw
it out there...
I've noticed a few people mentioned that people should avoid having
objects to close to the camera when shooting panos. I've never
really found this to be a problem. As any interiors shooter knows,
placing objects close to the camera creates a sense of depth in the
photograph so I've never varied my style for my VR work and have
had no problems.
Perhaps it's MGI's software. But I think it has more to do with
finding the nodal point of the lens as I indicated in a previous
post.
I just thought of a good way to illustrate the importance of this -
can't claim authorship as I think I saw it on an early APPLE demo
video about shooting VR. You can do it now at your computer.
Hold your arm out with one finger raised, and sighting through one
eye, line it up with an upright in the room you are in... a
doorframe, corner of the room ... now still looking through one
eye, turn your head from side to side. See how your finger moves in
relation to the upright in the background? This is because the
nodal point in your eye, the point at which the image flips from
right side up to upside down, is way out in front of the point of
rotation, your spine.
This shows the importance of placing your lens nodal point directly
over the point of rotation. Doing so will largely eliminate this
problem and ensure, for instance, that the coffe table in the
foreground will not move in relation to the furniture grouping in
the middle distance or the fireplace and wall in the background.
Having said all that though, I should add that the importance of
nodal placement diminshes if there is no foreground detail in the
shot. Many of the panoramas on our site were done hand-held with
just a bubble level in the hot shoe to act as a guide. In fact the
home page shot for this week - a last minute sustitution as the
location we originally had in mind was snowed in, it's actually a
family shot of my daughter's choir - was shot handheld, 28mm on the
Pro 70. I did two passes, 5 shots per pano, slightly under 180
degree angle of view. Only minor retouching and contrast masking
required
Hope this helps,

Doug B
http://www.torontowide.com
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
J. Brian Caldwell
http://www.caldwellphotographic.com
Click to expand...
 
Very nice piece of work Karl...has a very surreal feeling to it

DJM
Karlg said:
Moving the camera creates all kinds of problems with a non-flat
subject. Some panoramas programs have a "scanner mode" since you
are sort of acting like a scanner. A big issues is that my moving
the camera you are changing the perspective all over the place.
The other issue is that you would have to move the camera relaltive
to the size of the subject, the bigger the subject, the more you
have to move the camera.

The image below is a fairly extreme example "scanning". It is
composed of over 50 pictures. I was trying to roughly simulate
and orthographic projection (as if taken from very far away). I
was also very limited in how far I could back up as there was a row
of buildings opposite these. There were all kind of foreground
objects in the way like trees that covered up large parts of the
buildings. The trees were taken out by shooting from different
angles and dealing with perspective issues. It is by no means
perfect (I did it over 2 years ago and could do a much better job
today).

http://www.fototime.com/ {38478445-98AE-42BD-B46B-76656FFA78F6} picture.JPG
Carl Schofield said:
If one wishes to do a 2x3 matrix of shots in landscape orientation,
just to achieve higher resolution for printing, would it be easier
to just shift the camera laterally and up/down, keeping the sensor
plane parallel to the scene, rather than rotating the camera?
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
 
Brian you are, of course, right to a large degree and I not explain it very well. Not many of the software packages give you much control over the curvature.

By rotating the film plan you do create a perspective, converging line effect that has to be taken out by the software. There is also an issue of how much you rotate the image plane between shots. The more it rotates between pictures, the more extreme the processing at the seams and thus some loss.

If one used a Tilt-Shift lens rather than rotating the camera the captured image would not get smaller at the outsides, but then you are limited by the shift amount of the lens and T-S lenses are expensive and don't have autofocus.

By rotating the camera the software has to either shrink the middle or blow up the outsides if you want a "flat" image when shot with a fixed focal length. Thus it would make sense to ZOOM the lens as you rotate the camera (assuming you want a relatively flat/non-distorted image at high resolution). I would assume the nodal point would move (at least slightly) with a zoom lens and this may or may not be a mess depending on how much it moves. On the software size with digital cameras and EXIF information one would think that the software COULD deal with a changing focal length but I don't know of any packages that can do this of the top of my head.

Anyway some food for though,

Karl
brian said:
On second thought, there is at least one difference: the stitched
image will have little or no illumination falloff. Also, the
stitched image will have a much higher resolution, of course.

Brian
Karlg said:
First, "perspective distortion" is not a function of the lens. It
is s function of the relative distances of the objects to the
camera. People sometimes think/say that a wider angle lens has
more perspective distortion, BUT this is because to get the
subject(s) the same size in the viewfinder, they MOVE CLOSER thus
changing the distance.

Generally wider angle lenses tend to barrel distort. With zooms
the wide end generally barrel distorts more at the wide end and
pincussion distort at the tele end. Generally a good prime will
distort less that a zoom. Most of the newer pano software supports
dealing with a little barrel distortion in the lens.

I'm far from an expert on Panorama and was somewhat tong-in-cheek
with my "real men don't use tripods . . ." I like working the
photos in Photoshop, but if I were going to take a lot of
Panorama's (something I am considering) I would use a Pano head.
Also as Doug pointed out, if you are going to have any foreground
objects you really need one (and if you want everything in focus
you need to stop down).

There are a few other things that I have learned. While it may be
obvious to some, you can often avoid needing/wanting to shoot
multiple rows by having the camera in "Portrait Mode" (which is the
default orientation for many of the Pano heads). This is how I
shot the hand held panorama that I posted.

When you rotate the camera, you are creating a "piece-wise linear
curve image plane." This causes a different visual effect than
using a wider angle lens which tries (less barrel distortion) to
project on a flat image plane (as opposed to a QT image). The
obvious effect you see in many panoramas of say a constant height
subject like a wall is that it get taller in the center and shorter
on both ends (and bulges in the center). How much of this effect
you get is a function of relative distances and the angle you turn
the lens. If you want a flat image like it was take with a wider
angle lens, you are better off to get as far back as you can and
use a more telephoto lens and turn the camera through less angle
(often times this is not possible also per my first paragraph the
“perspective effects” will be different). The more the camera
rotates between shots the more extreme the differences will be and
thus the harder to blend well (since the image plane was turned
more).

Karl
David James Miller said:
Thanks Doug very interesting. Let me qualify my question about
lenses a little more. If I want to shoot outdoor panos and multi
rows what lens would be best and create less problems with barrel
and or perspective distortion?

Thanks

DJM
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
--
J. Brian Caldwell
http://www.caldwellphotographic.com
Click to expand...
--Karl
 
djm80364 said:
Finally, are you guys using EV lock? How to you handle exposure
variances?
Does any of the software help with this?

Thanks again for all the info!!

DJM
Click to expand...
For doing most Panoramas I would shoot in Manual and thus lock down the exposure. It is ALSO important to shoot in a mode with a CONSTANT white balance (if you "auto white balance" you can get shifting based on the scene content). I generally would sweep around the FoV and look for the brightest area and set the exposure based on that (with a D30 I will also shoot some test pictures and look at the historgram). The wider the FoV the more likely there will be more extremes from dark to light.

There are exceptions. The image below is a stitch of two pictures taken at different exposures. An image reflected in the water is about 2 stops darker in general that the original image. The "traditional" approach to this would be to use say a gradient filter such as a Cokin. When I took this vertical panorama, I shot the lower part of the image with the reflection in the water at about 2-F stops wider aperture.

http://www.fototime.com/ {6E7F2B4B-F34E-4ABA-9B69-D008758670E7} picture.JPG

Karl--Karl
 
Thanks again Karl and the castle shot is great...what lens did you use there?

DJM
Karlg said:
Karl Guttag said:
Finally, are you guys using EV lock? How to you handle exposure
variances?
Does any of the software help with this?

Thanks again for all the info!!

DJM
Click to expand...
For doing most Panoramas I would shoot in Manual and thus lock down
the exposure. It is ALSO important to shoot in a mode with a
CONSTANT white balance (if you "auto white balance" you can get
shifting based on the scene content). I generally would sweep
around the FoV and look for the brightest area and set the exposure
based on that (with a D30 I will also shoot some test pictures and
look at the historgram). The wider the FoV the more likely there
will be more extremes from dark to light.

There are exceptions. The image below is a stitch of two pictures
taken at different exposures. An image reflected in the water is
about 2 stops darker in general that the original image. The
"traditional" approach to this would be to use say a gradient
filter such as a Cokin. When I took this vertical panorama, I shot
the lower part of the image with the reflection in the water at
about 2-F stops wider aperture.

http://www.fototime.com/ {6E7F2B4B-F34E-4ABA-9B69-D008758670E7} picture.JPG

Karl
--
Karl
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, actually the last picture was a "mess up." I had used the "wrong" bottom. It turns out that the zoom ring had moved between the shots.

I wondered why it was so hard to get the top and bottom to match (that is also why the picture is so narrow as it caused more cropping). When I went back to check the Exif data I found my mistake. I did have a matching bottom.

I redid the picture with the matching bottom below (it when together much more easily). For reference I have included small versions of the two original shots. The top was shot with a Sigma 17-35F2.8-F4 at ISO100, 1/250th 19mm F8 and the bottom was shot at F4 (two F-stops). You will note that I adjusted the color a bit. It was late afternoon when the shots were taken and the first (top) shot is pretty close to how it looked.

http://www.fototime.com/ {03C8F501-4636-450A-9E0F-A2C5A2C0897C} picture.JPG

http://www.fototime.com/ {AAECEA7C-4172-4AC6-B10C-E29AE24DAA9F} picture.JPG

http://www.fototime.com/ {0BF97977-D518-452C-8F63-4B5CB9A09AB7} picture.JPG
David James Miller said:
DJM
Karlg said:
djm80364 said:
Finally, are you guys using EV lock? How to you handle exposure
variances?
Does any of the software help with this?

Thanks again for all the info!!

DJM
Click to expand...
For doing most Panoramas I would shoot in Manual and thus lock down
the exposure. It is ALSO important to shoot in a mode with a
CONSTANT white balance (if you "auto white balance" you can get
shifting based on the scene content). I generally would sweep
around the FoV and look for the brightest area and set the exposure
based on that (with a D30 I will also shoot some test pictures and
look at the historgram). The wider the FoV the more likely there
will be more extremes from dark to light.

There are exceptions. The image below is a stitch of two pictures
taken at different exposures. An image reflected in the water is
about 2 stops darker in general that the original image. The
"traditional" approach to this would be to use say a gradient
filter such as a Cokin. When I took this vertical panorama, I shot
the lower part of the image with the reflection in the water at
about 2-F stops wider aperture.

http://www.fototime.com/ 6E7F2B4B-F34E-4ABA-9B69-D008758670E7} picture.JPG;

Karl
--
Karl
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--Karl
 
Thanks!

It's a great image and great use of digital technology. Would make a great wide format print even though the aspect ratio is a little "diferent"

DJM
Karlg said:
I redid the picture with the matching bottom below (it when
together much more easily). For reference I have included small
versions of the two original shots. The top was shot with a Sigma
17-35F2.8-F4 at ISO100, 1/250th 19mm F8 and the bottom was shot at
F4 (two F-stops). You will note that I adjusted the color a bit.
It was late afternoon when the shots were taken and the first (top)
shot is pretty close to how it looked.

http://www.fototime.com/ {03C8F501-4636-450A-9E0F-A2C5A2C0897C} picture.JPG

http://www.fototime.com/ {AAECEA7C-4172-4AC6-B10C-E29AE24DAA9F} picture.JPG

http://www.fototime.com/ {0BF97977-D518-452C-8F63-4B5CB9A09AB7} picture.JPG
David James Miller said:
DJM
Karlg said:
Karl Guttag said:
Finally, are you guys using EV lock? How to you handle exposure
variances?
Does any of the software help with this?

Thanks again for all the info!!

DJM
Click to expand...
For doing most Panoramas I would shoot in Manual and thus lock down
the exposure. It is ALSO important to shoot in a mode with a
CONSTANT white balance (if you "auto white balance" you can get
shifting based on the scene content). I generally would sweep
around the FoV and look for the brightest area and set the exposure
based on that (with a D30 I will also shoot some test pictures and
look at the historgram). The wider the FoV the more likely there
will be more extremes from dark to light.

There are exceptions. The image below is a stitch of two pictures
taken at different exposures. An image reflected in the water is
about 2 stops darker in general that the original image. The
"traditional" approach to this would be to use say a gradient
filter such as a Cokin. When I took this vertical panorama, I shot
the lower part of the image with the reflection in the water at
about 2-F stops wider aperture.

http://www.fototime.com/ 6E7F2B4B-F34E-4ABA-9B69-D008758670E7} picture.JPG;

Karl
--
Karl
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
 
Karl.....

You do sime REMARKABLE work!!!!! I have learn SOOOOO Much from all of you..... Thanks for posting so much good info and examples......

I guess my original problem was that I had an original image and I wanted to figure a way to make it a higher resolution picture before I fully understood what all I needed...... I am going to strat off with some simpler panos without anything in the foreground and eventually get a pano head once I am comfortable with doing panos a little more.......

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL THAT HAVE CONTRIBUTED!!!
--Hector Gomez, LC
 
Hi Karl,

Terrific shots you've posted in this thread.

This discussion has me thinking that I should explore stitching software beyond MGI's PhotoVista. Roy Boorman also sent me a really nice panorama done with Photoshop elements. It's good to see samples of these other programs in action.

My question is, have you ever used Photoshop elements to stitch a panorama together - if so, what did you think - and also, did you use Panovue Image Assembler on the long streetscape panorama as well as the castle shot?
Really nice work.
Doug B
Torontowide.com
 
I have been on Photoshop for long before there was Elements so I don't know anything about it.

I have tried the various Panorama programs and have always had problems because I don't follow all the "rules" when I shoot. Most of my panoramas are make from on the spot, I see something that I think would make a nice panorama and shoot.

I have not found any tool that gave me all the control I wanted. I have either had problems with blending (I want to pick) or control of how the program curves the image. The GUI's on top of Panorama tools seem to do pretty close to what I want which is to do all the warping and leave things in layers with layer masks, but I have not figured out if they can let me control the curvature -- does somebody know one that does?

The big problem I have most of the Panorama programs is when they get it "close" there is no way to fix it. If they just left everything in Layers with Layer masks, then you could fine tune it manually. The other trick I use is the pick where the blend points are with the Layer Masks. You can often pick the blend points to occur at a point in the pictures were mistakes would not show.

It would seem to me that if one used a panorama head and did it "right" when shooting then it would be easy to stitch them together manually or with software.

Karl
Doug B said:
Hi Karl,

Terrific shots you've posted in this thread.
This discussion has me thinking that I should explore stitching
software beyond MGI's PhotoVista. Roy Boorman also sent me a really
nice panorama done with Photoshop elements. It's good to see
samples of these other programs in action.
My question is, have you ever used Photoshop elements to stitch a
panorama together - if so, what did you think - and also, did you
use Panovue Image Assembler on the long streetscape panorama as
well as the castle shot?
Really nice work.
Doug B
Torontowide.com
Click to expand...
--Karl
 
Karl

I posted this site earlier in the thread

http://www.panoguide.com/software/recommendations.html

He does a pretty good job of analyzing the various stiching programs. I am not a photoshop master and plan on shooting my panos with a good pano head, so which of the programs looks best to you?

Thanks for your help.

DJM
Karlg said:
I have tried the various Panorama programs and have always had
problems because I don't follow all the "rules" when I shoot. Most
of my panoramas are make from on the spot, I see something that I
think would make a nice panorama and shoot.

I have not found any tool that gave me all the control I wanted. I
have either had problems with blending (I want to pick) or control
of how the program curves the image. The GUI's on top of
Panorama tools seem to do pretty close to what I want which is to
do all the warping and leave things in layers with layer masks, but
I have not figured out if they can let me control the curvature --
does somebody know one that does?

The big problem I have most of the Panorama programs is when they
get it "close" there is no way to fix it. If they just left
everything in Layers with Layer masks, then you could fine tune it
manually. The other trick I use is the pick where the blend points
are with the Layer Masks. You can often pick the blend points to
occur at a point in the pictures were mistakes would not show.

It would seem to me that if one used a panorama head and did it
"right" when shooting then it would be easy to stitch them together
manually or with software.

Karl
Doug B said:
Hi Karl,

Terrific shots you've posted in this thread.
This discussion has me thinking that I should explore stitching
software beyond MGI's PhotoVista. Roy Boorman also sent me a really
nice panorama done with Photoshop elements. It's good to see
samples of these other programs in action.
My question is, have you ever used Photoshop elements to stitch a
panorama together - if so, what did you think - and also, did you
use Panovue Image Assembler on the long streetscape panorama as
well as the castle shot?
Really nice work.
Doug B
Torontowide.com
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
 
I know about this site. I have gone through most of the free trials and not found anything that works for me, but I have not been using a Pano Head (but I will probably be getting one).

My guess is that any of the top rated programs will work well if you use a Pano head right.

Another way to go with with a "GUI" in front of Panorama tools. Basically PT does the math well but is hard to use such as at:

http://www.ptgui.com/

There are at least two companies that have GUI's that use PT's math but make it much easier to use. These programs are a bit cheaper, but the big advantage to me is that PT results in Layer with Layer Masks. This would let me in Photoshop tweak things. With other programs, you tend to have to go back to the original, move flags or adjust blending regions and let it recompute the whole image. If you have a specific problem in a specific seam it can take a lot of trial and error and you still can't get what you want.

Karl
David James Miller said:
I posted this site earlier in the thread

http://www.panoguide.com/software/recommendations.html

He does a pretty good job of analyzing the various stiching
programs. I am not a photoshop master and plan on shooting my
panos with a good pano head, so which of the programs looks best to
you?

Thanks for your help.

DJM
Karlg said:
I have tried the various Panorama programs and have always had
problems because I don't follow all the "rules" when I shoot. Most
of my panoramas are make from on the spot, I see something that I
think would make a nice panorama and shoot.

I have not found any tool that gave me all the control I wanted. I
have either had problems with blending (I want to pick) or control
of how the program curves the image. The GUI's on top of
Panorama tools seem to do pretty close to what I want which is to
do all the warping and leave things in layers with layer masks, but
I have not figured out if they can let me control the curvature --
does somebody know one that does?

The big problem I have most of the Panorama programs is when they
get it "close" there is no way to fix it. If they just left
everything in Layers with Layer masks, then you could fine tune it
manually. The other trick I use is the pick where the blend points
are with the Layer Masks. You can often pick the blend points to
occur at a point in the pictures were mistakes would not show.

It would seem to me that if one used a panorama head and did it
"right" when shooting then it would be easy to stitch them together
manually or with software.

Karl
Doug B said:
Hi Karl,

Terrific shots you've posted in this thread.
This discussion has me thinking that I should explore stitching
software beyond MGI's PhotoVista. Roy Boorman also sent me a really
nice panorama done with Photoshop elements. It's good to see
samples of these other programs in action.
My question is, have you ever used Photoshop elements to stitch a
panorama together - if so, what did you think - and also, did you
use Panovue Image Assembler on the long streetscape panorama as
well as the castle shot?
Really nice work.
Doug B
Torontowide.com
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--Karl
 
Thanks

Guess I'll just have to try some out and find out which one works best for me.

Have you made any wide format prints of your panos? If yes how did they come out? Did you need to upsample them or was the resolution density good enough because of multiple shots? Sorry for so many questions but large pano prints are one of the things I really want to achieve.

DJM
Karlg said:
My guess is that any of the top rated programs will work well if
you use a Pano head right.

Another way to go with with a "GUI" in front of Panorama tools.
Basically PT does the math well but is hard to use such as at:

http://www.ptgui.com/

There are at least two companies that have GUI's that use PT's math
but make it much easier to use. These programs are a bit cheaper,
but the big advantage to me is that PT results in Layer with Layer
Masks. This would let me in Photoshop tweak things. With other
programs, you tend to have to go back to the original, move flags
or adjust blending regions and let it recompute the whole image.
If you have a specific problem in a specific seam it can take a lot
of trial and error and you still can't get what you want.

Karl
David James Miller said:
I posted this site earlier in the thread

http://www.panoguide.com/software/recommendations.html

He does a pretty good job of analyzing the various stiching
programs. I am not a photoshop master and plan on shooting my
panos with a good pano head, so which of the programs looks best to
you?

Thanks for your help.

DJM
Karlg said:
I have tried the various Panorama programs and have always had
problems because I don't follow all the "rules" when I shoot. Most
of my panoramas are make from on the spot, I see something that I
think would make a nice panorama and shoot.

I have not found any tool that gave me all the control I wanted. I
have either had problems with blending (I want to pick) or control
of how the program curves the image. The GUI's on top of
Panorama tools seem to do pretty close to what I want which is to
do all the warping and leave things in layers with layer masks, but
I have not figured out if they can let me control the curvature --
does somebody know one that does?

The big problem I have most of the Panorama programs is when they
get it "close" there is no way to fix it. If they just left
everything in Layers with Layer masks, then you could fine tune it
manually. The other trick I use is the pick where the blend points
are with the Layer Masks. You can often pick the blend points to
occur at a point in the pictures were mistakes would not show.

It would seem to me that if one used a panorama head and did it
"right" when shooting then it would be easy to stitch them together
manually or with software.

Karl
Doug B said:
Hi Karl,

Terrific shots you've posted in this thread.
This discussion has me thinking that I should explore stitching
software beyond MGI's PhotoVista. Roy Boorman also sent me a really
nice panorama done with Photoshop elements. It's good to see
samples of these other programs in action.
My question is, have you ever used Photoshop elements to stitch a
panorama together - if so, what did you think - and also, did you
use Panovue Image Assembler on the long streetscape panorama as
well as the castle shot?
Really nice work.
Doug B
Torontowide.com
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
 
PS Karl
If you ever need help with your golf swing I am here for you!

DJM
David James Miller said:
Guess I'll just have to try some out and find out which one works
best for me.

Have you made any wide format prints of your panos? If yes how did
they come out? Did you need to upsample them or was the resolution
density good enough because of multiple shots? Sorry for so many
questions but large pano prints are one of the things I really want
to achieve.

DJM
Karlg said:
My guess is that any of the top rated programs will work well if
you use a Pano head right.

Another way to go with with a "GUI" in front of Panorama tools.
Basically PT does the math well but is hard to use such as at:

http://www.ptgui.com/

There are at least two companies that have GUI's that use PT's math
but make it much easier to use. These programs are a bit cheaper,
but the big advantage to me is that PT results in Layer with Layer
Masks. This would let me in Photoshop tweak things. With other
programs, you tend to have to go back to the original, move flags
or adjust blending regions and let it recompute the whole image.
If you have a specific problem in a specific seam it can take a lot
of trial and error and you still can't get what you want.

Karl
David James Miller said:
I posted this site earlier in the thread

http://www.panoguide.com/software/recommendations.html

He does a pretty good job of analyzing the various stiching
programs. I am not a photoshop master and plan on shooting my
panos with a good pano head, so which of the programs looks best to
you?

Thanks for your help.

DJM
Karlg said:
I have tried the various Panorama programs and have always had
problems because I don't follow all the "rules" when I shoot. Most
of my panoramas are make from on the spot, I see something that I
think would make a nice panorama and shoot.

I have not found any tool that gave me all the control I wanted. I
have either had problems with blending (I want to pick) or control
of how the program curves the image. The GUI's on top of
Panorama tools seem to do pretty close to what I want which is to
do all the warping and leave things in layers with layer masks, but
I have not figured out if they can let me control the curvature --
does somebody know one that does?

The big problem I have most of the Panorama programs is when they
get it "close" there is no way to fix it. If they just left
everything in Layers with Layer masks, then you could fine tune it
manually. The other trick I use is the pick where the blend points
are with the Layer Masks. You can often pick the blend points to
occur at a point in the pictures were mistakes would not show.

It would seem to me that if one used a panorama head and did it
"right" when shooting then it would be easy to stitch them together
manually or with software.

Karl
Doug B said:
Hi Karl,

Terrific shots you've posted in this thread.
This discussion has me thinking that I should explore stitching
software beyond MGI's PhotoVista. Roy Boorman also sent me a really
nice panorama done with Photoshop elements. It's good to see
samples of these other programs in action.
My question is, have you ever used Photoshop elements to stitch a
panorama together - if so, what did you think - and also, did you
use Panovue Image Assembler on the long streetscape panorama as
well as the castle shot?
Really nice work.
Doug B
Torontowide.com
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Karl
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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