Went out with a couple of FMers visiting from LA yesterday and braved high winds and cold weather to get this shot. It was so windy each 4 second exposure suffered a little softness as I spun around to get the pano. CS5 did some odd horizon leveling which I just could not get any better than this. I hope you like it anyway. Thanks for looking everyone!
kabluey wrote:
A little soft like you said but nice job with the pano Conrad. Did you trying fixing the horizon with the Lens Correction tool?
Thanks kabluey I let PhotoShop do all the corrections and just cropped and resided. It is quite off isn't it? Perhaps I should have used a lens with less barrel distortion and backed up more or something.
The barrel distortion of the lens wouldn't affect the straightness of the horizon. That's totally the responsibility of the software; even if you didn't shoot level it should be correctable (although would require more cropping of the top and bottom). One shortcoming of Photoshop's pano merge process, despite its other improvements, is the inability to edit the pano and control points prior to final stitching. Even simple and inexpensive pano software provides for that. For a shot as nice as this one, I'd say it's worth it to use software that has the capability of correcting the horizon.
What a cool pano too bad the weather wasn't cooperating with you has you have some great light, colors and atmospherics here, as mentioned the tilted horizon is really making this pano suffer more than the softness for me, for Pano's I find Auto Pano software is the way to go really does a very nice job at stitching and correcting horizons, below is the link to Auto Pano if you want to check it out
The trick to poorly leveled shots is to "level" them before stitching. Using lightroom or bridge I would straiten all the horizons, save as TIFFs and then stitch in PS. This should eliminate the bow in the horizon quite easily and not require more software. Of course the better fix is to properly level the tripod before shooting and doing several test pans to make sure your horizon isn't moving up and down in the view finder.
dsjtecserv wrote:
The barrel distortion of the lens wouldn't affect the straightness of the horizon. That's totally the responsibility of the software; even if you didn't shoot level it should be correctable (although would require more cropping of the top and bottom). One shortcoming of Photoshop's pano merge process, despite its other improvements, is the inability to edit the pano and control points prior to final stitching. Even simple and inexpensive pano software provides for that. For a shot as nice as this one, I'd say it's worth it to use software that has the capability of correcting the horizon.
Dave
Thanks Dave! I'll try running it through a pano software and try again. Your input us much appreciated!
What a cool pano too bad the weather wasn't cooperating with you has you have some great light, colors and atmospherics here, as mentioned the tilted horizon is really making this pano suffer more than the softness for me, for Pano's I find Auto Pano software is the way to go really does a very nice job at stitching and correcting horizons, below is the link to Auto Pano if you want to check it out
Scott Kroeker wrote:
The trick to poorly leveled shots is to "level" them before stitching. Using lightroom or bridge I would straiten all the horizons, save as TIFFs and then stitch in PS. This should eliminate the bow in the horizon quite easily and not require more software. Of course the better fix is to properly level the tripod before shooting and doing sever test pans to make sure your horizon isn't moving up and down in the view finder.
This us why I love the folks here! Thank you for the tips Scott I appreciate it very much man!
Conrad, I get distorted horizon with each of my pano stitched in PS. Here is the remedy that really works.
For example, this and this had exactly the same problem as yours, but was corrected by method described in tutorial.
alatoo60 wrote:
Conrad, I get distorted horizon with each of my pano stitched in PS. Here is the remedy that really works.
For example, this and this had exactly the same problem as yours, but was corrected by method described in tutorial.
Man oh man..... you guys are the best! Thank you so much for the links!
What a cool pano too bad the weather wasn't cooperating with you has you have some great light, colors and atmospherics here, as mentioned the tilted horizon is really making this pano suffer more than the softness for me, for Pano's I find Auto Pano software is the way to go really does a very nice job at stitching and correcting horizons, below is the link to Auto Pano if you want to check it out
I use Auto Pano Giga too and ever since I found out about it I've never done another pano in any other software. It does a remarkable job. I can even do hand-held panoramas shot at 11mm (APS-C) with no stitching errors. It's great.
I let PhotoShop do all the corrections and just cropped and resided. It is quite off isn't it? Perhaps I should have used a lens with less barrel distortion and backed up more or something. 