Gareth said:
well, I have just discovered photoshop>file>automate>photomerge after seeing this thread

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=4778

I must say I like it.

Gareth: Maybe we should start a thread "The best feature you found your software has purely by accident"....

well, I have just discovered photoshop>file>automate>photomerge after seeing this thread

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=4778

I must say I like it.

sevencrossing said:
I have to confess, I often don't even use a tripod

Well that was 9 months ago
I now do a lot more panos
I use a Tripod
A Manfrotto 300N Panoramic Head
A Calumet gimbal head
and Manfrotto L Bracet
Same software LR3 then CS5 and back to LR3

Thanks to all that advised on Hugin it looks good, similar interface as PT-GUI.. but it handled the photos as required.. and it is freeware.(For Windows 32/64, Mac, Linux, etc)

spraynpray said:
Software handling parallax? I thought you used a pano head to correct for that and then the software doesn't have a problem? What software 'handles' parallax testing123?

You're right in that the effects (mismatched lines) won't be eliminated through software. What I was attempting to say is that many pieces of software will fail to stitch at all in those troubled situations.

sevencrossing said:
I have to confess, I often don't even use a tripod

If one doesn't have hard objects close the effects of parallax are likely "smeared" away and show up only as softness.

sprayandpray said:
I thought you used a pano head to correct for that ?

I have to confess, I often don't even use a tripod

Software handling parallax? I thought you used a pano head to correct for that and then the software doesn't have a problem? What software 'handles' parallax testing123?

Infinity-focused panos are easy. How well does a software package handle parallax is a key test.

I must be the only one still using Photoshop for this. I've never noticed an issue with it, but maybe I'm missing something. ;-)

San Diego, CA

I start with RAW in Lightroom 3 using "lens correction" to remove any Vignetting and distortion, then Edit a TIFF in CS5 to merge to panorama

I use CS5s "intelligent fill" to fill the top and bottom gaps then save as a TIFF in LR3

finally exporting a jpeg

it works incredibly well

but if your are stitching a lot of high res photos, CS5 does like plenty of RAM

as mention shoot vertical and don't use an ultra wide angle, 24-35 seems to work best on FX

in addition to WB, set exposure and focus to manual

I started with Panorama Maker, but then I discovered PT-GUI, I moved to it and never returned to the first one.

I tried also to use Photoshop Photo Merge.. but I was not happy with the results and went back to PT-GUI.

In the past I saw this link that explains how to take panorama photos: http://www.panoguide.com/howto/
(Just google for Panoguide, the panoguide site aims to provide a free central resource of information and discussion about panoramic photography)

What tips you can give for taking photos for Panoramas?

- Rotate the camera, so the short edge runs accross the panorama..
- Don't use polarizer filters?
- Avoid vinigretting lenses..
- Use fixed WB settings (if shot in raw)?

I'm a big panorama guy, don't post them on here due to size restrictions.

I use AutoPano Giga. *Link Removed*

I've been taking photos for years, not long ago did I love the panorama photos. I did a google search and found it's hard to choose from these 2 softwares: acropano and ptgui.

AcroPano Panorama Stitcher *Link Removed*
works good for large landscape view of photos, delicate in software interface and easy to use.

ptgui Panorama tools *Link Removed*
works good for 360 degree panorama, has more professional options which lacks of the ease for use.

It looks like I'm now huggin' Hugin then!

Sayonara, DoubleTake! :^P

QTVR is an export option from PTGUI, alphanikonrex, or you can export an equarectangular projection jiff/png/jpg from the free Hugin and use the free Pano2QTVR.

No watermarks. ;)

I've been using DoubleTake. It costs money, but I've worked around the demo. A watermark appears at the bottom of the image, so I just add more to the bottom of the panorama and crop that out when I export. Easy, simple, and effective :^)

DoubleTake is nice because it can export in a bunch of ways, including Quicktime VR which is awesome. Except you can't crop the watermark out if you export it as a Quicktime :^(

I saw that the Windows version of Hugin available for download is now version 2.0 (I was running version 0.7). I installed it and played around with it and the user interface is more polished and less buggy. Every time I use Hugin I'm amazed that it's free.

These were both shot with a 50mm 1.8 on a D300 (so 1.5x crop), with portrait orientation. I'm not on my home computer to check, but I think the Pittsburgh one is 7 shots and the SLC one is 12 or 13. It's hard to remember for sure because I cropped both of them. I got the 35mm 1.8 about two weeks after the SLC one--it would have saved some time.

Thanks, Doby. It wasn't quite as nice 15 minutes later when that same rain was falling on me and my gear getting down off the hill. ;-)

Love that line of rain. Very nice Jonny.

Thanks Jonnyapple for sharing, great pictures. I am trying to get picture done for a display at work. It is really difficult to find a Local view that would really showcase a Panorama stitch. We stitch and print were I work.

How many pictures did you stitch on each

I am going to download Hugin after I get my computer updated to Windows 7

Thanks Again

Pete

Yeah, it's absolutely free and it's got a pretty easy user interface. At least I was really impressed with how easy it was: load the pictures, wait for it to align them, check the alignment, click 'stitch panorama.' It's that easy. But if you want to get fancy, there are a lot of other options, as well, and even the manual control point adder is really slick if you need to use that.

Here are a couple that I've stitched with Hugin:
Salt Lake City
Pittsburgh

Just to show how powerful the autoalign feature is, I should mention that the Pittsburgh pano was shot handheld (unfortunately I didn't have my tripod, since it's because of one image that I shot high that I had to crop so much of the river at the bottom).

I'll dig one up to dump here tonight if I'm in a hotel with wi-fi. I can't afford to do one over the phone. ;)

EDIT:!
Don't know why I offered that - I don't have the right HDD with me. I can freehand a smaller one if you like, but I'mm 99% I don't have a big-boy with me.

Thanks Soap: I will try it, do you have any panorama pictures to show us

Pete

Stand alone. Just try it. It's free.

PS - make sure you tell it to use as much RAM as you can - else it thrashes the hard drive on larger panos (I typically do .25-.5 GP panos) and you'll find that drive speed is your bottleneck. Using it (or any pano software) on a 64 bit system with lots of RAM is helpful, but not needed. Slow laptop drives, though, are definitely going to be your bottleneck.

Jonnyapple: Hugin looks to be OK, I looked at their site a bit. Is the program stand-alone or does it plugin to LR.

Pete