How to stitch Raw files manually?

[BrentC]

How would I go about stitching together one or more Raw files manually? The reason I am asking is that I have a shot I took of a bird in flight and unfortunately the one really good shot has the bird bottom left corner. I really need to put space in front of him but he's right at the edge. Now there are two things I could do but not sure how to do it within PS or LR.

And I need to do this in Raw because I probably needs some manipulation after I put it together.

1.
There is lots of useable blue sky in back of the bird. I was thinking of stitching multiples of the same image together, therefore extending the blue sky in front and bottom of the bird and then cropping. Think of it as four square box, top right original image, three copies on the other three so I get the blue sky from back of the bird in front with a crop.

The only way I can see to stitch Raw file in PS and LR is panorama, which obviously doesn't work. There must be an easy way to do this?

2.
Somehow cut out a section at the back and attach it in front and bottom extending the image.. Once again, I want to do this in Raw.

Hope this all made sense. Am I missing some obvious editing function? I can't seem to find anything in a search, I just keep getting links to how to do panoramas.

 

[snowbear]

Raw isn't really an image, in and of itself. If you are worried about degradation from edits / re-saves, convert it to a TIFF or DNG, then go from there.
I like the idea of cut and paste - either more sky in front of the bird (easier) or moving the bird "back" (harder); either one will likely require some blending.

 

[480sparky]

Enlarge the canvas size, then Clone the sky from another image.

 

[Christie Photo]

Without seeing your images, my first thought is to open them in bridge and make any adjustments that might be necessary to the the background density and color balance so they match as closely as possible in all.

After opening them all in Photoshop, choose your "main" image (probably the one with the bird). Then drop the other image(s) on top of that one and set the layer opacity to 50% or so. This will allow you to move the top image around until you see you have it lined up. Once it's all in line, move the main image to the top layer. With all the layers set back to 100%, use the eraser brush to soften the edges where the files overlap. Use a brush size that provides a gradual transition. You can tweak differences in the background images using the "levels" commands.

Once you are satisfied with your results, flatten the layers and make your final crop.

I hope this helps.

-Pete

 

[weepete]

I'd go about is slightly differently I think. I'd cut the bird out then feather the layer and reposition towards the right. Duplicate the original background layer first and content aware fill the hole or crop off.

But it kinda depends on the tonal variations in the sky. Might have to even it out or even it out and then replicate a gradient. Could you post the image?

 

[BrentC]

Thanks guys! Extending the canvas is exactly what I was looking for. Since the background was fairly uniform all I did was extend the canvas, select the new space and fill with content aware. Any lines left I just healed. Here is the original and final image.

American Black Duck by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

 

[Christie Photo]

Oh, great! No worries then. I was envisioning a background of trees, horizon line, etc.

Good goin'

-Pete