Panoramic photo distortion

[dmatsui]

I have encountered some problems when stitching panoramas recently. I've read plenty of articles telling me how to take the panoramas so i know each picture needs to overlap and i take the pictures using a tripod aswell as keeping the settings constant (shutter speed, aperture, WB etc)
Occasionally i get pictures that just do not match. For example i was taking a panorama with my house involved and well some of the objects didnt line up at all. Its kind of hard to show this with images but if you need it i'm sure i can show you.
Anyway i'm guessing its lens distortion causing the problems? I use the 18-55mm nikon kit lens occasionally i'll need to use the 18mm side to take the picture. So my question is why am i having so much trouble stitching the pictures is it lens distortion, and if it is can that be fixed in photoshop so that i dont have problems merging the photos
I use Photoshop CS2

 

[xxx_jpk_xxx]

I use CS3, so I'm not sure if this is totally correct. In CS3, if you go to Filter>Distort>Lens Correction, a screen should pop up with your image with a grid overlay. The "Remove Distortion" setting is at the very top right of that screen.

Here are the settings that are on Ken Rockwells website for fixing the distortion in the 18-55mm:

"18 mm: Barrel. CS2's lens distortion correction fixes it perfectly at a setting of +4.50. If you don't have PhotoShop CS2 and look for distortion you will see it at 18 mm. For about the price of CS2 you can get the 12 - 24 mm which has no distortion at 18 mm.

24 mm: very little barrel. CS2's lens distortion correction fixes it perfectly at a setting of +1.50.

35 mm: Negligible barrel. CS2's lens distortion correction fixes it at a setting of +1.00. This is the same distortion as the Zeiss ZF 50mm f/1.4.

45 mm: none. Maybe set CS2's lens distortion correction to 0.1, except that that tool can't be set that close to zero.

55 mm: none. Zero."

I hope that helps a little.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that it probably is distortion that's causing your problem. I've had that problem occasionally, too, but I use Canon Photostitch to stitch my panoramas together. That usually corrects a bit of it by itself.

 

[dmatsui]

thanks allot, i'll have to try that out, i figured this was the problem but i wasnt 100% certain.

 

[xxx_jpk_xxx]

Yeah, definitely try it and get back to me on how it worked. I'm curious to see if I was right (I'm still kind of a noob to the whole panorama thing).