Panoramics

[DanielB]

whats your favorite program to stitch together photos for that panoramic effect, i'm aware of the photoshop action, but are there others, and if so, can you give me examples where you used them??

thanks:thumb

[DanielB]

no one?

[pathfinder]

Daniel, I just use Photoshop CS2 and its actions, or Photoshop Elements, but I rarely do panoramas so I am not the best source.

I know there are folks here who use PanoTools as well. Maybe they'll chime in as well, and help ya out.

[Andyman]

I do it manually in PS. Good 'ole layers and eraser too.

[Safari]

http://www.Autostitch.net

http://safari.smugmug.com/photos/32328552-L.jpg

Most panoramas seem to be outdoors at a long or "medium" distance. This was made from 6 indoor images at distances of 3-4 metres (about 10-13 feet).

[Richard]

http://www.Autostitch.net

Another vote for Autostitch. The user interface is a wee bit geeky and it takes a while to run on my wimpy laptop (1 Ghz, 512M RAM), but the results are very good. Much better than Canon's PhotoStitch.

Six frames using a 20D and Tamron 28-75 @ 50mm f/10 1/500 sec. ISO 100:

http://rsinmadrid.smugmug.com/photos/44189057-L.jpg

Cheers,

[det1rac]

Here is mine... I use PTGui (http://www.ptgui.com/), its fabulous, better than RealVIZ (http://www.realviz.com/products/st/index.php).

37 Images.
Gallery here (http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/1141395).


http://www.smugmug.com/photos/54202904-L-2.jpg

[Mike Lane]

Autostitch is teh r0x0rz. I used another program a couple of times that was really, really intensive. It basically had you go into the overlap and pick half a dozen points that the images had in common. Then it took the better part of a day to compile them all together. The advantages of it was that it ouput the one large pano into a psd composed of layers that you could manipulate. The downside is that it took a week to get a good pano.

With autostitch you give it a bunch of shots and it spits out a pano in a couple of minutes on a good machine.

[David_S85]

Daniel, I've used Panorama Factory for several years. It isn't capable of 360º x 180º photo bubbles, but decent for all else. If you don't use their oddball Wizzard interface but instead take the time to learn the program properly, it's pretty good. Even better now, but I haven't upgraded yet. John Strait, the author, is about as responsive as any when someone has a problem with it.

PTGui has a LOT of followers too. I might be looking at that one next.

None of these programs (the powerfull well written ones) are a cinch to learn. It takes experience to get the programs tuned to your own workflow. And in the same light, it also takes practice to learn how to get a series of shots that will stitch properly, no matter who's software you use.

Do visit the panoguide forums and panoguide.com for some interesting articles about panoramic photography. The forums are full of insight and experienced folks.

BTW, Panorama Factory has a 30-day free trial. Just don't expect the wizzard to do the best job.

You will also need to completely debarrelize your wide angle shots first. That utility is included in many packages, although many people skip that step and wonder why their stitches are difficult.

Hope that helps.