Posted by Darren White on March 31, 2007 at 4:47 PM
I am thinking this may be a solution to a problem I am having.
right now my D-70 will produce full size prints at 16x20 with great resolution, however I am looking for larger images to be able to print and hang in our home. Wall space is plenty so we need larger images.
I am not really ready to buy a new camera and I would like to try this photo stitching thing. I have seen images that can be printed to 15'x10' in size...
so I am asking you all what your experience is with photo stitching and if there is a certain program you prefer.
If it's just left to right stitching you need then I'd simply upgrade to PS3.
Posted by Darren White on March 31, 2007 at 8:13 PM
Mark, I am totally new to stitching.
I am currently using Paint shop Pro 9, 10, and 11 and I don't think any of them have stitching.
I have found some separate software programs on the net that offer free trials.
I am guessing that most people here are using CS2??
I have adobe 5.0 not sure if that has it but I know 5.0 does not support raw files!
Posted by Fred Renich on March 31, 2007 at 10:04 PM
Darren, I have been doing some research and beginning work with photo stitching. The best program that I have found is PTAssembler which can be found at
www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/
The software is a free download and is very powerful. He also has some great samples and there are good forums on this site.
Darren, take a look at Autostitch, a free program for Windows which is kind of cryptic to use but very good. Also look at Autopano Pro for Windows or Mac which is probably the best today in terms of automatic stitching. The interface is quite confusing at first, but they have good documentation. Autopano is amazing in how many images it can stitch. In fact, if you give it a folder of files from multiple panorama shoots, it will sort them out and stitch each panorama automatically as a batch. It also does HDR stitching like CS2/3.
Posted by Darren White on April 1, 2007 at 3:17 PM
Thanks...I am heading up the gorge today and will try some shots to see if I can figure this all out...
Darren,
I have been going through the same process as you are with regards to a good stitching software program. There are a number of them that are free but I have found a lot of them to be above my level of expertise and then there are a lot of excellent ones with rather high price tags for those of us that will do a small number of panos. I did come across a program which you should check out for the price is right and from what I have seen so far I am very impressed with it's cababilities and simplicity of operation. It is ArcSoft's Panorama program with a cost of about $30.00. A free 15 day trial is available. They also have a Pro version for about $80.00 but at this time for me I can not see any reason to go to the Pro version. If at a later date I feel the need to do so, then upgrades are available. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Darren, this is a 5 shot panorama taken last week on my day in the CRG. Photoshop 3 generated this automatically and totally blew me away. Original PS3 file is over 460MB in size. The shot is so-so and I'm going to try this one again on a day with better sky. But the ease that PS CS3 assembled this was really an eye opener.
If you have PS CS or PS CS2, there are some great additions to PS CS3 including auto stitching that is far better than it was in PS CS2.
Posted by Darren White on April 3, 2007 at 12:42 AM
Thanks for the replies.
I have tried the Autopano and it puts a watermark on the images for the trial version
I also downloaded Arc Soft's Panorama maker 4 tonight and like the results I am getting from it.
I will be running more tests in the coming days to see if I am ready to lay down the coin for these programs....I am looking for one that will do horz and vert so I can take say 8 pics of a scene in a square grid and put them all together....I am getting good file sizes with the ones I have tried....and I like that!
John - thats a very flattering shot of the falls, considering the blown out sky. I may have to think about toying with some panoramics next time I'm there.
Darren, this is kind of obscure, but the best stitching application I've ever used is Canon's Photostitch -- it comes free with Canon's camera software, and I was able to buy a copy of the CD (w/o camera) for $20 awhile back. It's MUCH superior to Photoshop in blending sky and is also "smarter" in warping images to bring like focus points together. It also has a manual mode that makes it easy to map the like focus points. I still use it as my preferred stitching program. I also really dislike the quality of Photoshop's stitching macro (I'm using Photoshop CS 8.0 on a Mac).
Darren,
Look at PTgui. I have tried them all and that seems to be the best including PSCS3. Not sure you are Mac or Windows as I think PTgui is only windows.
What is nice about PTgui is it does all the stitching without needing any help positioning the files, finds all the necessary control points and allows you to save the setup for later use. I do that often - i.e. taking multiple exposures at each position and creating several pano copies using different exposures. They are registered perfectly so I can copy one into the other as a layer and blend the exposures. This is a must with most large scale panos which include sky etc. The exposure is rarely the same across the entire image especially if you use a polarizer . PTgui is also very good at blending the exposure of the seams.
Thanks Phil, I actually have bought ArcSoft Panorama maker 4 which will do shots that are in a row... I would like to get something that I can stitch something like 4 across the top 4 across the middle and 4 across the bottom making for a HUGE file....
I also have CS3 now and just have no clue how to use the stitching....maybe you could email me and point me in the right direction there!
Darren,
Well PTgui does this and aligns everything by itself. I have done a 6x6 array (36 shots using a pano head from really right stuff) with my 1Ds2. The final image was 500Meg pixels. The setup took 5 minutes (my time) and the file took 2 hours to process on my twin Xeon. Yes I need a 8x Xeon box...
Discussion
13 repliesright now my D-70 will produce full size prints at 16x20 with great resolution, however I am looking for larger images to be able to print and hang in our home. Wall space is plenty so we need larger images.
I am not really ready to buy a new camera and I would like to try this photo stitching thing. I have seen images that can be printed to 15'x10' in size...
so I am asking you all what your experience is with photo stitching and if there is a certain program you prefer.
Thanks for any info you can provide!!!
Darren
I am currently using Paint shop Pro 9, 10, and 11 and I don't think any of them have stitching.
I have found some separate software programs on the net that offer free trials.
I am guessing that most people here are using CS2??
I have adobe 5.0 not sure if that has it but I know 5.0 does not support raw files!
www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/
The software is a free download and is very powerful. He also has some great samples and there are good forums on this site.
I have been going through the same process as you are with regards to a good stitching software program. There are a number of them that are free but I have found a lot of them to be above my level of expertise and then there are a lot of excellent ones with rather high price tags for those of us that will do a small number of panos. I did come across a program which you should check out for the price is right and from what I have seen so far I am very impressed with it's cababilities and simplicity of operation. It is ArcSoft's Panorama program with a cost of about $30.00. A free 15 day trial is available. They also have a Pro version for about $80.00 but at this time for me I can not see any reason to go to the Pro version. If at a later date I feel the need to do so, then upgrades are available. Take a look and let me know what you think.
If you have PS CS or PS CS2, there are some great additions to PS CS3 including auto stitching that is far better than it was in PS CS2.
I have tried the Autopano and it puts a watermark on the images for the trial version
I also downloaded Arc Soft's Panorama maker 4 tonight and like the results I am getting from it.
I will be running more tests in the coming days to see if I am ready to lay down the coin for these programs....I am looking for one that will do horz and vert so I can take say 8 pics of a scene in a square grid and put them all together....I am getting good file sizes with the ones I have tried....and I like that!
Tom
Look at PTgui. I have tried them all and that seems to be the best including PSCS3. Not sure you are Mac or Windows as I think PTgui is only windows.
What is nice about PTgui is it does all the stitching without needing any help positioning the files, finds all the necessary control points and allows you to save the setup for later use. I do that often - i.e. taking multiple exposures at each position and creating several pano copies using different exposures. They are registered perfectly so I can copy one into the other as a layer and blend the exposures. This is a must with most large scale panos which include sky etc. The exposure is rarely the same across the entire image especially if you use a polarizer . PTgui is also very good at blending the exposure of the seams.
I also have CS3 now and just have no clue how to use the stitching....maybe you could email me and point me in the right direction there!
Thanks
D
Well PTgui does this and aligns everything by itself. I have done a 6x6 array (36 shots using a pano head from really right stuff) with my 1Ds2. The final image was 500Meg pixels. The setup took 5 minutes (my time) and the file took 2 hours to process on my twin Xeon. Yes I need a 8x Xeon box...