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04-25-2018, 07:51 AM   #1
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stitching photos tip

okay folks, just returning from an amazing trip across Costa Rica.
each trip i challenge myself to learn and try something new.

this time i tried taking fewer lenses, and learned to stitch pics or 'bokeh panorama' just so i dont have to carry several lenses.

with that, i'm running into some issues.

i took a portrait made up of about 30 images.
i took a landscape made up of about 19 images.
another portrait made up of about 25 images
and another landscape of about 15 images.

when stitching them together, my computer and photoshop were dragging. its a MASSIVE file and to work with it takes days. ie, that portrait made up of 30 days took my computer an entire weekend to process from start to finish.

i know some of you here do stitching while traveling, and make up some 50+ images to one massive image....how are you doing this without destroying your computer/time/ etc?

the gear i was using were:
pentax k1
tamron 70-300
pentax 100mm wr.
pentax 77mm

shooting raw.

i know LEE here (if i remember his name correctly?) recently went to iceland and used a 28mm lens to stitch some 30 pics into one image. great end result. however, due to 28mm distortion, i'd assume a lot of the images had to be cropped or de-distortioned to make it right?

how do you stitch? any tips?

04-25-2018, 08:04 AM - 1 Like   #2
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For working on large numbers of large files, a very large amount of RAM is required. 30 files at (let's say) 36MB each will be over 1GB. To process that, the software will need multiple copies of the data to ensure non-destructive editing. This then needs moving and processing. I would want at least 16GB RAM along with a very fast processor and HDD. Even then, long processing times are inevitable.

One solution is to downsize the images first - unless you want to end up with a 600MB file, you will be downsizing anyway - and work with smaller TIFFs to speed up the process.
04-25-2018, 10:07 AM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by victormeldrew Quote
One solution is to downsize the images first - unless you want to end up with a 600MB file, you will be downsizing anyway - and work with smaller TIFFs to speed up the process.
Yes to this. Decide beforehand what the highest-resolution version you expect to need will be and downsize accordingly.

QuoteOriginally posted by hadi Quote
i know LEE here (if i remember his name correctly?) recently went to iceland and used a 28mm lens to stitch some 30 pics into one image. great end result. however, due to 28mm distortion, i'd assume a lot of the images had to be cropped or de-distortioned to make it right?

There's nothing inherently distorting about a 28mm lens. I think you mean "perspective distortion", which isn't optical distortion at all, it is a function of output size and resulting viewing angle compared to the lens's original angle of view. At any rate, any stitching program I have tried does an excellent job tying things together and converting the stitched images into a new, wider field of view that looks as though it came from an equivalently wide lens.
04-25-2018, 11:01 AM   #4
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I haven't had much experience doing this having only dabbled with it 3 times so my advice is probably worth what you paid.
I have had pretty good luck doing initial stitching using MS Image Composite Editor. My goal is to go out this weekend and make another attempt as my previous ones were using very poor technique which become very apparent. I know other people have used hugin for creating panoramas but I haven't tried for that. I have made attempts in Photoshop and anything more than a handful of photos tends to go sideways pretty quick but then that may because I am using CS3 and not a newer version.

Computer hardware wise I have plenty and for things like this RAM would likely be the limiting factor. I have 32GB installed in my machine and will frequently hit that. To further speed things up I have a dedicated disk that I use for virtual memory (for an additional 128GB) and for Photoshop scratch space. This disk is a 256GB ssd so it doesn't have the latency problems that spinning ones do which is a huge speed killer.

04-25-2018, 12:52 PM   #5
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What software are you using? Stitching is slow, but a weekend seems way too long. I have stitched 16 on occasion and it probably takes less than 10 minutes, though that is more of a linear panorama, not 2-D stitching.

The RAM might be an issue, as mentioned, but still -- a whole weekend?
04-25-2018, 12:55 PM   #6
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Use fairly small JPEGS instead of RAW files.
04-25-2018, 02:29 PM   #7
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I haven't used that many files to stich, the most was ten at one time. But what I do is take the raw files into Lightroom, apply the same processing to each file, then export them as smaller jpegs and then stitch the jpegs. I once processed & stiched eight raws directly, but the resulting stitch file was larger than I wanted and I ended up reducing it anyway.

04-25-2018, 03:17 PM   #8
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i was using photoshop and camera raw and bridge
i was using RAW images
i was editing them images once the stitch was complete. then turning it into jpeg.

currently the full screen of certain images says its 'zoomed in' only 4%, and that is covering my entire screen. so the images are HUGE.

the result is incredible. just...has to be a faster option out there. i will try shooting jpeg next time and try the process.

my computer worked fine up until the stitches took place.
04-25-2018, 05:12 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by hadi Quote
my computer worked fine up until the stitches took place.
What's the specs of your computer?
04-25-2018, 06:41 PM   #10
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When I stitch large I do it in segments. I process all the RAW files to Tiff. I'll then make a stitch of files, Horizontal and save as Tiff. I'll continue to the next row and so on until all images are used. I then start stitching all Horizontal sections together, one at a time, until complete.
I don't use PS rather a program made strictly for pano.
I started the routine on a Core 2 Duo box and continue today on a hopped up Core I5. They can be printed large enough to cover a wall.
For me it wasn't for a large print, I just wanted to do it
04-25-2018, 09:47 PM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by hadi Quote
i was using photoshop and camera raw and bridge i was using RAW images i was editing them images once the stitch was complete. then turning it into jpeg.
There are two problems with doing it in this sequence. First, the RAW images that you are stitching won't be corrected for exposure, WB, distortion, vignetting, etc. It would be much more difficult to make those kinds of corrections to a stitched RAW image than making them first to the original image. Second, your processing program would be trying to cope with a huge file.

Like @thazoo, I process RAW files with the same WB and so on, export to TIFF, and stitch the TIFF files (although in one go not in lines). I use Microsoft ICE. Then I export to jpg at some manageable size.

Maybe I should try the alternative of exporting to jpg from the RAW processor and stitching the jpg files. The only thing I would be concerned about would be degradation in re-saving to the final jpg.

I'm struggling to get my head around stitching 30 images for a portrait. Even assuming it's a group shot, or an environmental portrait, or Brenizer pano, that seems like a lot. Perhaps you would get adequate coverage of the scene by using a selected subset of the photos?

Last edited by Des; 04-26-2018 at 02:25 PM.
04-26-2018, 11:53 AM   #12
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Why do you need 30 photos? For a pano 3-5 overlapping shots suffice. But please clarify if you have something specific in mind. Sorry if I missed it...
04-26-2018, 12:01 PM - 1 Like   #13
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I can't contribute much on processing, I used MS ICE with a maybe 5 jpegs, and it only took a few minutes - probably not the best for quality, but for my purpose it suited.
As far as distortion, the panorama in question used photos from the fisheye (i'm pretty sure, at least), to my inexperienced eye I don't see much problem.
04-26-2018, 02:26 PM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by Marcel K Quote
Why do you need 30 photos? For a pano 3-5 overlapping shots suffice. But please clarify if you have something specific in mind. Sorry if I missed it...
to use brenizer effect, or the bokeh panorama.

ie, if i'm using a 77mm for portrait for head and shoulder, and i want to include the background, then i stitch several pics around the subject to include in the image.

so make a 77mm capture what a 24 mm or something would be able to see, but the subject separation is that of the 77mm

case in point:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/selmanparlak/13164916815

this is NOT MY SHOT! it was made up of over 100 shots. based on the blur, i'd assume the photographer used an 85mm? and they stitched a total of 104 shots

Last edited by hadi; 04-26-2018 at 02:42 PM.
04-26-2018, 02:49 PM - 1 Like   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by Marcel K Quote
Why do you need 30 photos? For a pano 3-5 overlapping shots suffice. But please clarify if you have something specific in mind. Sorry if I missed it...
I agree that 30 seems an unusually large number, but 3-5 often isn't enough. The aim isn't necessarily to use the fewest number of images to capture the scene. People often use many shots for Brenizer panos (as the OP is doing), or for a very wide scene. And if you are using a telephoto lens, more shots will be required to cover a particular field of view. Telephotos lenses can give an interesting compressed effect, and using more shots can give more detail.

For this one, I used 14 images taken with the K-3 and FA*300mm f4.5. Maybe I could have done it with fewer, but not a lot fewer.


For this one, I used 15 images with the K-S2 and D FA 100mm f2.8 Macro WR. Probably some redundancy, but it doesn't matter. I was happy with the result.


This one was based on 10 vertical images with the K-3 and FA 77 Ltd. More images, more detail.

Last edited by Des; 04-26-2018 at 02:55 PM.
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