Best stitching program

[Sideshow Bob]

Anyone know what the best stitching program would be for large files? I have two 6x12transparencies that I’m trying to blend together but Photoshop CS2 photomerge won’t work. Isays I don't have enough RAM (I have 4g).

Thanks,
Gale

[ykumar]

I recommend the following:

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
Hugin is the best public domain software. Powerful, fast, free.

http://www.autopano.net/
Autopano Pro is very good value for money. Very efficient with memory, so it can do enormous panoramas with very limited PCs.

Yatish

[marcmccalmont]

I am real happy with PTGui if you try it I'll give you all my settings to save you some time
Marc

[Paul H]

Hugin does a good job most of the time, where some care is taken with exposure and using a standard to telephoto lens. Available for Windows, Linux and Mac (although the latter is a release behind at the moment). Best of all it is free.

Autopano Pro is excellent though, and well worth the money. It seems to cope better with shots taken with auto-exposure or bracketed exposures, and can do HDR stitches. Seems to be memory efficient and reasonably quick too. It's available in Windows and Mac versions. Probably overkill for stitching scans.

If you are just trying to stitch two scanned images, then give Hugin a go, and use the online tutorials to get you started. There is a specific tutorial for stitching scanned images. If it doesn't work, then try Autopano - there is a trial version available.

[Roger Hein]

I'll second PTGui but will add Photomerge in CS3 is VASTLY improved over CS2.

[Marco Annaratone]

I have been using PTGui for almost four years now, and it is definitely my recommendation, excellent in the way it handles virtual memory and in the quality of the output . In spite of my relatively unimpressive computing gear I was able to put together really large panoramas with it. You can read a short blurb on a billion pixel infrared image put together with PTGui (and some labor of love...) right here:

www.infraredphoto.eu/BillionPixel.htm

Cheers!

[redu]

I use autostitch and quite happy with it. Depending on your file sizes and hardware, memory constraints are there of course. Worth having a look at.

[Paul Droluk]

Have you tried using the Automerge command in PS-CS? As long as the two exposures were the same it should do a pretty good job.

[Howard Slavitt]

The panoramic stitching program in the new Photoshop CS 3 is truly excellent. It's especially good for flat stitches; if you obtained your transparencies by just shifting the back of your view camera, that would be a "flat stitch" situation (i.e. no change in perspective). But it's also excellent for all stitching. I've been comparing it to autopano pro and find that Photoshop CS 3 is better. What's especially nice is that it gives you the option of (1) flat stitching, (2) perspective stitching, and (3) spherical stitching. Also, if you choose perspective stitching, you can choose the vanishing point. I find that for stitching up to 5 or 6 vertical shots with a wide lens (28mm or 35mm in full frame 35mm format) the "perspective" stitching works best. It's also A LOT faster than any of the other programs I've tried -- I'm using Photoshop CS 3 on an Intel Duo Mac 2.66 ghz with only 3 GB of Ram.

[Sideshow Bob]

Thanks for all the replies. What I've decided to do is upgrade to CS3 and give it a try before I invest in more software. If it doesn't work out then I'll look harder at some of your suggestions.

Gale