where there’s smoke there’s forum fire
I have shot a few panorama pictures this summer even one at our BMX track. I don't presently have anything in software that can do panorama stitching. For some of my pictures I used our lab at work to join and print
Anyway what do you use, have you tried Easypano Panoweaver 6 or is there something better out there. I would also like to do a Panorama stitching combined with HDR
Thank you for any help with this
Pete
For LDR, Hugin is free (in both senses of the word), uses the same libraries as PTGUI, and is powerful enough for most of what I do.
For HDR I don't know.
Have anyone used Easypano Panoweaver 6, it is app $ 100.00 or are there other programs maybe even free downloads
Thanks
Peter
I like Hugin, too, and as far as I know it does HDR, as well. At least the UI has HDR options. I can't say I've ever used them. Even if it doesn't, I know the free lightroom plugin LR/enfuse is ridiculously easy to use, so you could export each set as HDR and then merge them in Hugin.
But I'm pretty sure Hugin includes enfuse.
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
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.
Thanks Soap: I will try it, do you have any panorama pictures to show us
Pete
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.
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).
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
Love that line of rain. Very nice Jonny.
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. ;-)
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.
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 :^(
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. ;)
It looks like I'm now huggin' Hugin then!
Sayonara, DoubleTake! :^P
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.
I'm a big panorama guy, don't post them on here due to size restrictions.
I use AutoPano Giga. *Link Removed*
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 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 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
Infinity-focused panos are easy. How well does a software package handle parallax is a key test.
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?
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.
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