Hdr panorama?

THAN THE SWORD · 06-27-2009, 11:56 PM

Is it possible with a bit of planning to construct a panorama that is also an HDR?

I am just starting to play around with the panorama feature of CS4 and have been having fun with it. But I haven't done any HDR.

I am going on vacation soon and was thinking of combining the two. Has anyone had experience and or luck combining them?

Name: FISHERS PANORAMA.jpg
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Name: FISHERS PANORAMA.jpg
Views: 216
Size: 35.3 KB

*RawheaD* · 06-28-2009, 12:16 AM

No problems, as long as there aren't too many things moving around in the frame. Of course, unless you want to do extreme HDR, you could always just shoot your pano in RAW, and then using Photomatix (if that's what you're using) "Single File Conversion" to create a pseudo-HDR, like so:

*RawheaD* · 06-28-2009, 12:18 AM

Also, you could use pano stitching software like PTGui (paid) or Hugin (free) that will handle bracket-shot panos and also create HDR for you. I tend to like having Photomatix create the HDR then stitching with PTGui but there is that option of doing everything in one app.

*panoguy* · 07-05-2009, 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by THAN THE SWORD

Is it possible with a bit of planning to construct a panorama that is also an HDR?

Yes, it definitely is. I've been doing this professionally for 9 years now. Takes a bit of planning and the right software to put it all together, but the results can be well worth it.

Originally Posted by THAN THE SWORD

I am just starting to play around with the panorama feature of CS4 and have been having fun with it. But I haven't done any HDR.

I am going on vacation soon and was thinking of combining the two. Has anyone had experience and or luck combining them?

Photoshop CS4 will not make both an HDR and a Panorama at the same time, so you will need to Merge to HDR each set of exposures first, and then use Photomerge to stitch the resulting HDRIs together. (I use Photoshop CS4 Extended for this - so it might depend on the version you have) Or, you can get some pano-dedicated software like PTGui ($99), AutoPanoPro ($120), Hugin (Free), or Stitcher Pro ($350) to do the stitching and HDR creation at the same time for you - ease and speed goes up with price, naturally.