Panorama Images - The Stitching Process
Having captured your (many} images required for the envisaged panorama, you then have to set about stitching them together. For the purposes of this set of notes, I will assume that you have captured one set of portrait-format images, all overlapping by 33%. No exposure bracketing or focus stacking is to be used. If you took more than one image of a particular shot, I am assuming you have chosen the ones that suit your requirements best.
There are a number of software packages which will perform panoramic stitching. The obvious choice might be Lightroom/Photoshop and over the years I found it to be adequate for the more straight-forward panos. However, I became increasingly frustrated with failed attempts, where alignments were not accurate or perspective distortions ruined the image or the required flexibility to choose which part of an overlap to incorporate was just not there.
Having trialed some other dedicated stitching software, I finally bought PTGui and I have to say I am delighted with the results I am able to obtain. So much so I have been able to go back through my catalogue and create panos which had not previously been possible with Photoshop.
I will therefore be concentrating on outlining a workflow which relies on PTGui for the stitching process.
Initial Processing/Raw Conversion
Having selected the images I am going to use, I open them in Camera Raw to perform some basic processing on the individual files. This could also be carried out in Lightroom as the same functions are available there.
I have covered the detail of Raw Conversion in my previous notes on the subject and I would refer you back to these, although at this stage it is only for a limited range of adjustments to get the images ready for stitching. The remainder of adjustments would then be carried out on the final panoramic image.
The most important adjustments to run through initially are to ensure that all images are matching in terms of exposure. This should have been done at point of capture. I.e. shutter speed, aperture and ISO should all be the same. This should also the case for white balance. 'Auto' white balance, although usually perfectly adequate for single shots, can cause problems if the camera sees fit to alter the white balance as the shots are taken. If you didn't set 'Manual' i.e. a specific Kelvin value, you should synchronise these before the stitching process is carried out.
More to follow.........
There are a number of software packages which will perform panoramic stitching. The obvious choice might be Lightroom/Photoshop and over the years I found it to be adequate for the more straight-forward panos. However, I became increasingly frustrated with failed attempts, where alignments were not accurate or perspective distortions ruined the image or the required flexibility to choose which part of an overlap to incorporate was just not there.
Having trialed some other dedicated stitching software, I finally bought PTGui and I have to say I am delighted with the results I am able to obtain. So much so I have been able to go back through my catalogue and create panos which had not previously been possible with Photoshop.
I will therefore be concentrating on outlining a workflow which relies on PTGui for the stitching process.
Initial Processing/Raw Conversion
Having selected the images I am going to use, I open them in Camera Raw to perform some basic processing on the individual files. This could also be carried out in Lightroom as the same functions are available there.
I have covered the detail of Raw Conversion in my previous notes on the subject and I would refer you back to these, although at this stage it is only for a limited range of adjustments to get the images ready for stitching. The remainder of adjustments would then be carried out on the final panoramic image.
The most important adjustments to run through initially are to ensure that all images are matching in terms of exposure. This should have been done at point of capture. I.e. shutter speed, aperture and ISO should all be the same. This should also the case for white balance. 'Auto' white balance, although usually perfectly adequate for single shots, can cause problems if the camera sees fit to alter the white balance as the shots are taken. If you didn't set 'Manual' i.e. a specific Kelvin value, you should synchronise these before the stitching process is carried out.
More to follow.........