Photo stitching software

[Big Fish]

Greetings...

Using CS2 I did a photomerge of 4 landscape images trying to consolidate a mountain into one landscape image. Shooting from one location left to right. It merged fairly well to marry the peaks (foreground is good)together but falls apart in the center of the photomerge. Is there an inexpensive plug-in or can you provide some guidance.

Thanks.

[D. Bryant]

Greetings...

Using CS2 I did a photomerge of 4 landscape images trying to consolidate a mountain into one landscape image. Shooting from one location left to right. It merged fairly well to marry the peaks (foreground is good)together but falls apart in the center of the photomerge. Is there an inexpensive plug-in or can you provide some guidance.

Thanks.

Try Hugin - it's free.

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

[Donald Miller]

You didn't mention if you were shooting off a pano head. That would help you a lot. There are several manufacturers of heads out there. I use Nodal Ninja.

I think that, in my opinion, the best stitching software and attending hardware is Kolor. Not inexpensive however.

[Darin Boville]

You didn't mention if you were shooting off a pano head. That would help you a lot. There are several manufacturers of heads out there. I use Nodal Ninja.

I think that, in my opinion, the best stitching software and attending hardware is Kolor. Not inexpensive however.

Autopano Pro (Kolor) is what I use, along with a RSS pano head. The Nodal Ninja is good, too. Get a Nodal Ninja and Autopano Pro for, what? $250?

--Darin

[IanG]

Having tried all the free software the only one I've found that works easily and reliably is Microsoft ICE.

Ian

[Asher Kelman]

Autopano Pro (Kolor) is what I use, along with a RSS pano head. The Nodal Ninja is good, too. Get a Nodal Ninja and Autopano Pro for, what? $250?

--Darin


I agree that Autopano Pro is a very good option and a 100 times more powerful than the photomerge option of Photoshop! Autopano Giga is what I use. In the rare circumstance that something does not stitch quite right, try checking the option to treat the lens as a fisheye. That sometimes works wonders for some unknown reason. One can use a free download trial version to test things out.

Another great option is PTGui.

Asher

[bsimison]

Another vote for Hugin. It gives you more control over the final look of the pano than Photoshop's PhotoMerge function.

[Big Fish]

Greetings to all..Many thanks for response to stitching software. Will try.

[Fotoguy20d]

I've been using PTGui for quite a while now with excellent results. FWIW - just a couple of days ago I processed this 40 shot pano taken with a DSLR - I had shot it a couple years ago and forgot about it. Can't see much in the post, but it stitched perfectly.

Dan

[Paul H]

I'll put in two votes, since that's the system we use down here ;-)

1. Free and hugely capable, try Hugin. There's a raft of articles and tutorials that can take you through everything from stitching "tiles" to doing spheres.
2. If you don't mind spending €100 or so, Autopano Pro is really good. You can usually leave it to do its own thing, but if that fails, you've still got full manual control. It's quite a bit quicker on my iMac than Hugin.

[venchka]

For Windows machines, Microsft ICE is GREAT! Once you learn how to adjust the intial image, everything goes together nicely. Even handheld images from my phone! So much for spending mass quantities of loot on pano heads!

LeicaBerry Torch + Microsft ICE + LR/Enfuse.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/d/245550-2/Train+Enfuse+11-27-2.jpg

Same as above minus LR/Enfuse.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/d/245419-2/Mineola+11-27-6.jpg

[IanG]

For Windows machines, Microsft ICE is GREAT! Once you learn how to adjust the intial image, everything goes together nicely. Even handheld images from my phone!

Virtually all my stitched images are from hand held work, usually colour with a DSLR, and Microsoft ICE does an amazing job where other programs fail,

However no program can actually match shooting on film, there's something that gives the film images an edge and makes them look more natural. Often I've shot stitched colour alongside a 6x17 & B&W and it's only when you compare the results you see there's a difference.

I'm told that Colin Prior the British landscape photographer who specialised in colour panoramas (617) has returned to film again after a spell shooting stitched images because he just couldn't achieve the same qualities. My personal experience mirror this.

Ian

[James Olson]

Can Hugin be used on a Windows 7 64 bit system
thanks

Jim

[Fotoguy20d]

There is a 64-bit version. Don't know if its for Windows 7 or not, but I would guess that it is.

[Linhof]

Photoshop CS5 is my answer.

[Brian Ellis]

Photoshop made huge strides in their stitching algorithms from CS2 to CS5. If you're planning on upgrading to CS5 I'd do that first before buying any third-party software. You might very well find no need for anything else, I know I haven't with CS5. If you don't plan on getting CS5 then I'd look for a third-party solution. CS2 really wasn't all that good with stitching.

[Asher Kelman]

CS5 is still not as capable as Autopano Pro and Autopano giga from Kolor.com. Another superb program is PTGUI. That also has transverse mercator projection in addition to the usual rectilinear, sphere and mercator etc.

Asher

[Fotoguy20d]

Jim,

The answer is yes, Hugin will work on Windows 7 64-bit. It's quite a nice package - I've started using it over PTGui. I don't know how it compares to the newest version of PTGui - mine is a couple of major versions old now but based on how hugin works, I see no reason to pay to upgrade to PTGUI 9 or whatever its up to.

Dan

[rallys]

I have been using pixtra and I think that it is a good alternative if you do not want to spend on a software you are not that sure with. While photoshop offers a pretty good arsenal of other tools you could use, a separate software just for your stitching needs would still come in handy.

They offer solutions for panorama and larger scale photographs pieced together using a number of smaller ones.

[domaz]

CS5 is still not as capable as Autopano Pro and Autopano giga from Kolor.com. Another superb program is PTGUI. That also has transverse mercator projection in addition to the usual rectilinear, sphere and mercator etc.

Asher

Transverse Mercator? Is it a GIS program or a stitching application? Soon you will be able to pick your UTM Zone so it will give you an even more accurate stitch based on the curvature of the Earth at the point where you took the picture.

[Daniel Moore]

PTAssembler is another potent application with a great tool set for 'tricky' stitches. One such use is employing it's Hybrid Rectilinear output projection format to correct for cosine distortion near the edge of an image. Once in a while I have no choice but to include a lamp or bowl in an interior shot and I use this to reduce the distortion along just that edge of the image to bring things out of the ultra wide angle look, whether the image is stitched or a single shot.