Panorama stitch problem...

[Primoz]

Hey!

I have a panorama of a wedding ceremony (people in chairs etc.)
But when I stitch the photos in photoshop I get mistakes (not alligned lines, a person is cut in half etc.)
I already tried all the posibilites PS offers for stitching panoramas but none of them work...
Is there anything I can do to fix it? Another (better??) software maybe?

Thanks! =)

 

[480sparky]

If you overlapped enough images, you can clone a portion of one frame into the problem area.

 

[sovietdoc]

I assume you're using buit-in photoshop tool for panoramas.

How many shots are you loading into it to do the aligment?
How much memory does your computer have?
If you don't know exactly, how many megapixels did the camera have with which you took the shots? (Just to get an idea of how big each file is)
Are you importing RAW's or JPEGs?
Did you do any corrections before importing the files into photoshop panorama tool?

If you can get me some answers to these I may be able to further help you troubleshoot this issue.

 

[Primoz]

Thanks for the response! =)
Yes, I have the photos in LR4, then I select the images -> right click-> edit in photoshop (merge to panorama)
There are 6 shots (in portrait layout to be stitched into landscape panorama)
My desktop computer has 4gb RAM, my laptop 8gb...
I am importing RAW (Nikon .NEF) files.
There were no corrections done before importing into photoshop (just opened in LR4)

 

[albertstien3329]

Maybe I'm just noticing it 'cause this is the first time a shot I have is in the running ... but this thread has 99 views (as of writing this) and only 7 votes. Come on, folks! I'm not saying vote for me - just take 30 seconds, look at the shots, and vote for one you like!

 

[480sparky]

Maybe I'm just noticing it 'cause this is the first time a shot I have is in the running ... but this thread has 99 views (as of writing this) and only 7 votes. Come on, folks! I'm not saying vote for me - just take 30 seconds, look at the shots, and vote for one you like!

What on God's Green Little Half Acre are you talking about?

 

[Edsport]

Thanks for the response! =)
Yes, I have the photos in LR4, then I select the images -> right click-> edit in photoshop (merge to panorama)
There are 6 shots (in portrait layout to be stitched into landscape panorama)
My desktop computer has 4gb RAM, my laptop 8gb...
I am importing RAW (Nikon .NEF) files.
There were no corrections done before importing into photoshop (just opened in LR4)

Try without using Lightroom...

 

[o hey tyler]

Try without using Lightroom...

Why? He's doing the pano in PS. Why does it matter where he opens the file from?

 

[Edsport]

Don't know, maybe just a thought that lightroom may be corrupting the files. Just a thought bud...

 

[JohnnyWrench]

New guy here, but when I do my panoramas I export the RAW files as JPEGs or TIFFs and then use those files to stitch the image together. As long as there's sufficient overlap in the shots it seems to be pretty close every time.

Do you always use the RAW files for panoramas? I've never tried it like that before...

 

[Murray Bloom]

I know that this will sound silly, but the program I use for stitching is PhotoStitch, which came free with a Canon point and shoot camera I bought years ago. It seems to always work and is extremely accurate. I shoot Nikon and it works fine. I've even stitched scans from 8x10 transparencies. It apparently will stitch a maximum of 26 shots, although I've never tried nearly that many.

It's available as a download from Canon.

 

[Gavjenks]

There are a lot of other reasons things can go wrong:

1) If you changed any of your exposure values between shots, it can confuse the software and potentially make it "jump" suddenly when it shouldn't, etc. You should always shoot panoramas on manual mode, and meter one way for the whole panorama. It's easy to forget to do this and to have your camera set to spot or evaluative metering or something on aperture priority mode, and then every time you take one of the photos, it gets metered differently than the last one and you end up with a huge headache for the software.

2) If you moved your camera overly weirdly during the panorama. Did you do it handheld, or on a tripod? Photomerge can correct for a bit of deviation: a few degrees of tilt difference, a bit of perspective change, an inch or so of up/down sway, etc. But it can't correct very well for 10 degree tilts to the side, or if you took a step or two in between photos, or if you drew your arms in or out in between photos by much. Doing these sorts of things will change the relationship of objects to each other. Photoshop isn't magical, and it can't change 3-dimensional relationships that differ between images. It can only stretch and skew the images it gets. So if Aunt Mary is hidden behind Uncle Tom in photo #1, but not in photo #2, then it's impossible to stitch those together seamlessly.

Thus, a tripod is always best. And better yet, a tripod with specific panoramic brackets to center the correct part of your optical system over the pivot point.

Or if you do go handheld, you need good technique in how you pivot, to ensure that the optical axis of the camera comes as close as possible to always intersecting at a single pivot point, and minimizing angular tilts and imperfections as much as possible.

3) Which mode did you choose in photomerge? the first one that lets it distort and everything as it sees fit? Or one of the lower options? If you chose one of the more constrained options (not the first one), then it might not be able to come up with a solution, even if there were only miniscule errors in how you moved your camera. Definitely try using the first mode if that's not what you did already.

 

[AlexanderB]

To avoid such issues, like a person cut in half, you need a software with a better "deghosting" algorithm. Deghosting means software will select cuts between photos in a such way that objects (especially moving ones) will go into a panorama as a whole, not in parts. If you're on Mac you can try PanoEdit It has a demo version and usually does a good job with deghosting.