Some of you make panos and mosaics look like a snap. What is your secret? Here's an attempt (from 17 pictures?) of mine - no matter what fiddling I've tried to do in PS, I haven't been able to get the exposures to match up well before stictching, and haven't been able to figure out how to change the exposures layer by layer after stitching to avoid the shifts from image to image. Are there tricks in Photoshop to do this, or would I need PTGui, or something else to do this right? I thought I would share this attempt anyway to 1. justify the amount of time I've wasted on it, and 2. show off where I got to go two weekends ago on a hike with a friend - just around an hour from home, with cool beers and fresh Oregon strawberries available on the way home.

[rhermans]

Nice try - I'm not good in doing it myself so if needed I use a program to do this.
The best program I know to do this is Autostich.
The interface is not that great but it's FREE and did I say it's (imho) the best

AutoStitch

Offcourse you can get a better version, with a smoother interface

• Autopano Pro Panorama software photo stitcher: Autopano Pro Home - Autopano Pro Website (Windows, Mac)
• Serif PanoramaPlus Serif ¦ Desktop Publishing, Graphic & Web Design, Digital Video & Photo Editing (Windows)
• Calico Kekus photo stitching and correction software. Panoramas made easy. (Mac)

are the ones who work with the same engine.

Just try it, I know you'll like it.

[Heinrich Lohmann]

You did not waste your time doing that, you learned something from it and that is worth more than the time that you spent on it.

I'll have agree with Ronny, AutoStich workes like magic (most times) and the price is right.

Take care, Heinrich

[NaClH2O]

Well Betsy all I can say is that you are braver than I. I've yet to attempt one of these daunting projects. I do know that most of the really good panoers? (is that a word?) use a tripod with a special head.

NaCl(and I agree with Heinrich about learning something)H2O

[SCGushue]

Betsy,

There are no tricks to pano or mosaic photography. There are a few cardinal rules
that will suffice.

The hardest part of a journey is the first step (orignal thought )

The best thing you can do is what you have done. The scenery is gorgeous and deserving of viewing...
presented as you have. I see the scene...not the pixels.

What would help here are:

A high end tripod (mine is over 10#'s but I always take it when hiking)

Set your camera to manual and shoot from a leveled tripod (level in all directions as you rotate is the key
trick here... it ain't as easy as it sounds.)

Do at least three runs by bracketing to the underexposed side of the equation.
(The reason for this is that you take your meter reading on the point of interest and that is usually the "average exposure".
As you turn the tripod head the sky will lighten and wash out. Bracketing to the under exposure side gives you some leeway.

In the image you have here you can also add an extra row of images pointing down about 5 to 10 degrees to give the pano more
vertical height and more detail. I would suggest a pano head for that. Nodal Ninja is great but cost 200.
It is well made. The more foreground you put in the more parallax problems you encounter and the more trouble any stiching
software has pulling it all together.
Learning to use a pano head correctly will eliminate parallax problems.

I use PTGui (99.00) and find it works wonderfully. Huggins is free and may actually be PTGui interface wise. CS2 stinks at panos...
but is great at reworking the PTGui layered panos. The greatest feature of PTGui for me is that it is that the blending engine just
seems to work nearly perfectly.

I'm new to this stuff too. It is a headache to learn it all but the rewards are really worth it in situations such as you have shown above.

Great start here... I hope you dive in here and show us more of the beauty of Oregon and Washington.

Drop me a line if there is anything else I can do for you.

Stephen

[philzucker]

Hi, Betsy!

I think you already have a nice pano at hand here - a few strokes touching up the
seams in the sky with the healing brush in PSE, then add a frame and some minor
tweaks, a caption as a last finishing touch and here you are (some quick and dirty work only):



As far as general comments for pano taking are concerned: Basically I can second
Stephen. For the quick handheld pano I adhere to the following:

- I select a scene with no prominent foreground elements to avoid parallax
problems in later stitching (on the right and left edge foreground elements are
okay!). Also I avoid to contrasty scenes (see next paragraph).

- I select exposure looking at the brightest region of the pano I want to capture
and lock exposure and - if shooting JPG - WB. Makes merging the pics later really
easy! You can raise shadows in PP if necessary.

- I then proceed to take the pictures quickly trying to remain more or less level -
easy if you have a horizon line - just make sure through the viewfinder that the
horizon stays approx. at the same level.

- an overlap of 1/3 from pic to pic is enough

- then I throw the resulting pics into PTGui (really worth the investment!) and let it
do the blending and stitching. Often the result is good enough without further PP

- Some minor retouching and shadow raising may still be called for - can be done
with your favourite PP application.


If you have complicated scenes e.g. with lot of forground elements and moving
objects, follow the steps and tools described by Stephen - the method explained
above is suitable for quick handheld work only.


Keep on trying, Betsy!


Phil

[hamidlmt]

Betsy, I dunno how to do panos either..., but it seems like you have the raw materials here. It does give me a nice impression of the spectacular view! I sort of dig the ragged, cut and paste framing. Though, towards the left is not as wonderfully random as the right side.

Phil, your treatment is very cool!

[photo_mom]

Hi Betsy!

That's a lovely place you visited and I'm glad you tried to show it as a pano! You did much better on your first try than I did. (HA! I picked my backyard as my first subject figuring it would be easy to stitch something so boring.)

Hi Phil!

You're the Stitch Master! Wonderful job at working Betsy's pictures into a very interesting picture!

[rhermans]

Phil,

I'm just amazed what you did. Never got anywhere descent when stitching a pano without a tool

concur with Tracy You're the Stitch Master

[carpents]

I'm going to be the first who uses Photoshop for stitching to weigh in. I have Autostitch but for whatever reason (probably the not-so-intuitive interface) I never liked using it much. Here are my keys:

1. Use Manual exposure! Photoshop is very fickle with lightness/darkness.
2. Align the horizon with one of the lines on the focus screen and keep it there.
3. When using automerge, I manually align the pictures and 'keep as layers'.

I then go down each layer - top to bottom - and using layer masks blend in each layer. Photoshop actually does a pretty decent job guessing how to skew/rotate/align each image but it is pretty poor at actually merging each layer together. I think for 'casual panoramicers' (unlike Stephen or Phil) this method will work fine.

This is the exact technique that I used for my shots of Cuyamaca in Southern California - which doesn't have a tremendous amount of detail but it is in fact from many stitched images.

--Sean

[philzucker]

Thanks to Tracy, Ronny & Hamid for the words on my attempt.

As I don't want to "rob" this thread from Betsy (Sorry!) I also applaud Sean redirecting us to the question from her - what can be done in Photoshop about the original versioni?

First one can use advanced blending options in CS2's "Photomerge" - I somehow doubt this was checked, looking at the very prominent seams visible.

Second there is a function in PS CS2 buried in the menus - called something like "similar colors" - that allows to adjust different shades, hues and tones between otherwise rather similar pics, like those this pano is made of. If you use this function before attempting the stitch, blending will be even easier. Sorry that I can't name that function precisely, right now I don't have access to a an English copy of Photoshop.

And like Hamid I can dig the rough, jagged look of your original version - maybe you can just change the background color to something other than white; you could experiment with shades of green - or black as I used in my attempt.


Phil

[betsypdx]

You did not waste your time doing that, you learned something from it and that is worth more than the time that you spent on it.

I'll have agree with Ronny, AutoStich workes like magic (most times) and the price is right.

Take care, Heinrich

Nice try - I'm not good in doing it myself so if needed I use a program to do this.
The best program I know to do this is Autostich.
The interface is not that great but it's FREE and did I say it's (imho) the best

Just try it, I know you'll like it.

Well Betsy all I can say is that you are braver than I. I've yet to attempt one of these daunting projects. I do know that most of the really good panoers? (is that a word?) use a tripod with a special head.

NaCl(and I agree with Heinrich about learning something)H2O

Thanks Ronny, Heinrich, and Salty. I think I should try out Autostitch - free is a very good price :)

[betsypdx]

Betsy,
There are no tricks to pano or mosaic photography. There are a few cardinal rules
that will suffice.
What would help here are:

A high end tripod (mine is over 10#'s but I always take it when hiking)
. . .
I'm new to this stuff too. It is a headache to learn it all but the rewards are really worth it in situations such as you have shown above.
. . .
Great start here... I hope you dive in here and show us more of the beauty of Oregon and Washington.

Stephen

If you're "new" at this there's hope for me yet. Thanks for all the great tips. No worries about me continuing to take pictures showing the beauty of Oregon and Washington - I've got some nice shots of the Columbia River from another rocky promontory that I hiked to on Monday. The idea of lugging around a tripod though is probably a non-starter for me - I don't even do that for macros of wildflowers.

Hi, Betsy!

I think you already have a nice pano at hand here - a few strokes touching up the
seams in the sky with the healing brush in PSE, then add a frame and some minor
tweaks, a caption as a last finishing touch and here you are (some quick and dirty work only):
. . .
As far as general comments for pano taking are concerned: Basically I can second
Stephen. For the quick handheld pano I adhere to the following:
. . .
Keep on trying, Betsy!

Phil

Thanks Phil - amazing what you could do with the "flat" version. And thanks for the tips - I will keep trying (and, no you didn't rob this thread - it was just the response and encouragement I needed).

[betsypdx]

Thanks Hamid - I may need to try a rough overlap/not blended version. I used to do that on occassion with prints and it could turn out looking kind of cool.

[betsypdx]

Hi Betsy!

That's a lovely place you visited and I'm glad you tried to show it as a pano! You did much better on your first try than I did. (HA! I picked my backyard as my first subject figuring it would be easy to stitch something so boring.)

Hi Phil!

You're the Stitch Master! Wonderful job at working Betsy's pictures into a very interesting picture!

Thanks Tracy - was that backyard stitch the one with you "running away" on the lawnmower?