Some may not be aware that there is a new tool called Autopano that can be used as a plugin for PTAssembler. It automatically detects control points and while it needs to be "watched", it does a very good job. Greatly reduces the tedium. --c
Charlie C wrote:Is this the secret weapon you used to put together the horse shoe bend pano?
No, I used Pano Tools / PT Assembler on the Horseshoe Bend shot and it came out at 127 Mpixels.
Hugh wrote:
Looks like a 'must have' for pano folks, and may even capture some who aren't . Thanks for the information.
Don't know about that, yet. I haven't tried enough panos with it. It does look very promising though.
Chris wrote:
Was just having trouble in blending blue skies in my pano attempts using cs.. and looking for a better tool. Your examples do look promising...!
Thanks for the info!
I wouldn't be misled by my skies, Chris. I was very careful to make the temperature of each shot exactly the same. Plus, I was using a 400mm on this pano so the FOV is not very large.
Rob wrote:
How would you rate this in terms of quality of finished product to Pano Tools and PT Assembler? I know you have done some interesting peices in the past with PTA and, of course, there is Max Lyon's work. I fnid it does a great job, although rather laborious! If this is it's equal, I would find it hard to not use it. And as for the size limit, Just build 2 or three (or more?) mini panos with it and then do a final assembly with PTA or Hugin and use Emblend to average out any differances in exposure.
Eventually, I'd like to do Horseshoe as you've suggested. At the moment, my number of panos is too limited to be able to make the comparison you seek.
Charles K wrote:
Some may not be aware that there is a new tool called Autopano that can be used as a plugin for PTAssembler. It automatically detects control points and while it needs to be "watched", it does a very good job. Greatly reduces the tedium.
I hadn't heard about Autopano. Thanks.
Don,
This a pretty exciting piece of software. It is worth the price for just stitching if it works as expected. Have you considered doing a test with your Horseshoe Bend stitch with (I think) Panorama tools? It would be an interesting comparison. BTW, does Max Lyons know about this software? Thanks for the update. I look forward to more posts. Oh, I kind of forgot, Really great image.
Don,
How would you compare this with the PhotoShop photomerge? I have only played with the photomerge a little and was underwelmed by it. What does the sticher in image-pro bring to the table?
Rob wrote:
How would you rate this in terms of quality of finished product to Pano Tools and PT Assembler? I know you have done some interesting peices in the past with PTA and, of course, there is Max Lyon's work. I fnid it does a great job, although rather laborious! If this is it's equal, I would find it hard to not use it. And as for the size limit, Just build 2 or three (or more?) mini panos with it and then do a final assembly with PTA or Hugin and use Emblend to average out any differances in exposure.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you on your question. I've reworked the Horseshoe Bend pano, as several suggested, with this product. As you can see by the panos included, there is a pronounced difference in the perspective of the 2 though the same shots were used. I know that the perspective shown by the 2nd shot, i.e., with Digital Image Pro 10 (DIP), is very accurate. I also know that setting the reference point in PT can have an effect on the finished pano, so that might explain the difference.
Something I did not expect, though, was that with PT there were many "stitch lines" though the shots were seamless (same exposure and WB). It was as if the overlap produced a darker region, even though they were aligned. Again, this may come with my beginner status with PT. DIP exhibited no lines whatsoever.
As far as alignment, PT had a bit of an edge. The alignment in several areas of the DIP image were slightly off in a few places though not many at all.
Total time to produce the DIP pano prior to post processing was about 10 minutes, maybe less. Needless to say, PT required many hours.
Sorry about the color. Converting to sRGB from Adobe seems to affect these colors quite a lot and adds some saturation, as well.
Does anyone have an idea why the shift?
I convert to sRGB then when I hit Save For Web I get this huge color shift that is very visible in PS before I save the web shot. Is there something I'm missing in Preferences? Somewhere else?
Tim wrote:
This a pretty exciting piece of software. It is worth the price for just stitching if it works as expected. Have you considered doing a test with your Horseshoe Bend stitch with (I think) Panorama tools? It would be an interesting comparison. BTW, does Max Lyons know about this software? Thanks for the update. I look forward to more posts. Oh, I kind of forgot, Really great image.
Tim, see post above. I suspect that Max is aware of this technology because Bill Gates gave a demo of it at a conference a few months back. I know that hit the newswire.
David wrote:
How would you compare this with the PhotoShop photomerge? I have only played with the photomerge a little and was underwelmed by it. What does the sticher in image-pro bring to the table?
Sorry David. Although I have PS/CS, I haven't tried photomerge yet so I can't make an accurate comparison.
Don, this looks like a very interesting piece of technology. I am definately going to have to consider picking a copy of this up. As it is now, I get great results but only at the expense of many laborious hours spent staring at the computer. I guess I am not a purist, becuase I would gladly spend 10 minutes to get the same results and the rest playing with my daughter. Keep me in the loop on this as you get to better know this program. I am quite impressed this far.
I just grabbed a copy and it looks like a pretty interetesting tool. I haven't really kicked the tires yet but I did do a quick pano of one that I had done with PS Photomerge and it did a fantastic job. At first blush this was much better then Photomerge.
I've used Photomerge quite a bit and I found I achieved the best results by using a convoluted combination of a technique from Scott Kelby's book to balance the color tones, and finalizing with the advance sticking capabilities of photomerge. It works quite well but is very time consuming. MS DIP 10 on the other hand was able to do this automatically and with no visible stitch lines.
My disclaimer is that I only tried this with one image so it is in no way an endorsement. I'm going to try it out with a variety of images with different characteristics and if it holds up, it will be my tool of choice for panos. Of course it does a lot of other things too, but I don't plan on giving up PS anytime soon!
Thanks very much for sharing this info, Don. It sounds very promising, but like the others, I'd like to see how it handles a more challenging stitch with some foreground paralax, light falloff at the sky edges, etc. If it can do OK with that, and automatically set control points, I've found my new stitcher and would gladly pay $80 for that!
-David
Incredible panos! I'm assuming this program works just the same whether an image was taken with a digital camera or is a scan of film? I think I'll buy this stitching program. I know Bill Gates can use a little help here and there.
Based on a limited sample of one example that Don did for me in DI Pro 10 and one I did with Photomerge in PS CS, it seems that DI Pro 10 did a better job in matching color. PS CS, on the other hand, seemed to do a better job with the seam. PS CS seemed to select an "intelligent" area to place the seem while the DI Pro 10 seemed to place the seam right in the middle. In this case, it was a shot of a group of people and a seam went through a persons face and it did not look nice.
I took another series of shots outside this afternoon with the express purpose of trying out photomerge since I had not used it prior to today. The sky did not match up very well even though each of the 8 shots had the same exposure and I adjusted each to the same temperature, etc. when converting it from RAW. I'm guessing my biggest problem was because I was using a polarizer which is affected by the angle of the sun. In addition, I guess I should be shooting around 31mm with my 1.6x crop drebel.
Gary wrote:
I just grabbed a copy and it looks like a pretty interetesting tool. I haven't really kicked the tires yet but I did do a quick pano of one that I had done with PS Photomerge and it did a fantastic job. At first blush this was much better then Photomerge.
I've used Photomerge quite a bit and I found I achieved the best results by using a convoluted combination of a technique from Scott Kelby's book to balance the color tones, and finalizing with the advance sticking capabilities of photomerge. It works quite well but is very time consuming. MS DIP 10 on the other hand was able to do this automatically and with no visible stitch lines.
My disclaimer is that I only tried this with one image so it is in no way an endorsement. I'm going to try it out with a variety of images with different characteristics and if it holds up, it will be my tool of choice for panos. Of course it does a lot of other things too, but I don't plan on giving up PS anytime soon!...Show more →
Gary, I'm glad there is now more than one of us with this technology. As Harvey will attest on an indoors family portrait, it is not necessarily the best solution for all situations but, I'd venture to say, for most situations that I would shoot (landscape), it will be my first solution and, if found to be lacking, I will give PT a try.
Walter Mitty wrote:
Don, this looks like a very interesting piece of technology. I am definately going to have to consider picking a copy of this up. As it is now, I get great results but only at the expense of many laborious hours spent staring at the computer. I guess I am not a purist, becuase I would gladly spend 10 minutes to get the same results and the rest playing with my daughter. Keep me in the loop on this as you get to better know this program. I am quite impressed this far.
Playing with one's daughter should be high on the priority list.
Tim wrote:
I would assume 8 bit only?
I'll have to get back to you on that one.
David wrote:
Thanks very much for sharing this info, Don. It sounds very promising, but like the others, I'd like to see how it handles a more challenging stitch with some foreground paralax, light falloff at the sky edges, etc. If it can do OK with that, and automatically set control points, I've found my new stitcher and would gladly pay $80 for that!
If it could do all that, I'd gladly pay quite a bit more. I can only speak for paralax as that doesn't seem to be handled. I can see that in the yellow FG plant above.
Buck wrote:
Incredible panos! I'm assuming this program works just the same whether an image was taken with a digital camera or is a scan of film? I think I'll buy this stitching program. I know Bill Gates can use a little help here and there.
Well, I suspect you may find more value from the purchase than Bill will derive.
Don,
thanks for the PM and updates. I'm not sure about the colors, but the perspective vs. Pano tools is much more pleasing. You are the official FM beta tester for this new software. I figure, a $100 product vs, a Sigma 12-30 zoom for $600...let me think. If this can do even simple 3+ side by side capture with no muss, no fuss, I could accept the price. Please keep doing the research.
When you and Jeffrey do the desert again may I carry your gear? I could learn a lot being a caddy for you guys. You guys really stretch the limits of imagery.
