FlashPanos

well I've been making handheld panos for several years and had a fair bit of post work to do as a result but Photoshop CS3 has a 'merge' photos tool which is simply a jaw dropper. Portrait, or landscape, vairable exposures etc it simply stitc hes and blends automatically with superb results.
You would never need anything else.
Peter

Hey Peter:

I have recently used Photoshop CS3's Photomerge tool -- and you're right, it is pretty darned good. I shied away from Photomerge back in CS2 because then it wasn't all that hot.

One thing I haven't done is try it with bracketed exposures -- will it handle them?

Cheers,

Hi Patrick,
The align image stack tool, which is used in conjunction with enfuse has its limitations as far as pixel offset and projection is concerned. Only recently a fisheye projection parameter has been added. I did a compare to CS3 autoalign a while ago and it is actually better than align image stack above 20 pixel shifts. Of course, it is a faster flow if you can align and enfuse in one go, but good to have other tools to your disposals if the shake gets drastic:-)
http://360image.de/test/align_enfuse.htm

Thanks for this new forum initiative. A breath of fresh air, desperately needed!

Milko! How's tricks?

Thanks for the thanks -- I thought I saw a niche, and do hope this forum proves popular and useful.

Thanks also for the info on image stacking/aligning. Yes, I think we all have many tools in our chests -- Gotta say, though, that I use a tripod as much as possible.

I have a client project I'm working on right now, which involved me being on a crane at 24 stories or so, at the magic hour (madly snapping away). Except for the full 360° panos, Photoshop is giving me the best stitch. I'm feeding PS roughly 25 2912x4368 TIFs, resulting in a 60" x 30" partial panorama. Except for some places in the immediate foreground, its blending is excellent.

Cheers,

Patrick

I have tried using PS CS3's photomerge, and it always worked OK on about 50%, and on the other 50% it would fail irrevokeably, miserably, and terribly. How do you all get it to work right?

Am I missing something really obvious?

Zephyr

Hmm...

Well, I'm sure not feeding it fisheye images. The images I've been giving it are shot from my panohead, at about 43mm. It eats them up.

Other people like Milko seem to be able to give it handheld shots and it does fine...

Dunno: What sort of overlap do you have between images?

P

I did a very quick handheld set of st Peter's in Rome, there were people all around moving from one pic to the next, I had the camera on automatic, therefore each pic had a different exposure as I moved the lens from light to lighter. I expected to have a 'mare' stitching them, not a bit PS did a flawless job. I simply selected all 'open' files and left it to run. Amazing, no blurred figures, no blurred cobbles, no faults in the architecture. I was gobsmacked. i got the same results from sets I did of the Colleseum. i have the photos as stills on my site, admittedly really small res as they are swfs.
www.picurpicture.co.uk
/Multimedia Services/Multimedia/Photos ( its a Flash site so no URL directions )
It was only after I did them that i discovered Flash Panos so I'll be going back to re-make some of my pics as Flash Panos. it's really exciting to be able to get enthusiastic about panos again after watching Apple let it wither on the vine.
Peter

Hey Peter:

Nice!

Is that the one with the sun and steeple in the middle of the image?

Your site's navigation is... interesting.

thank you Patrick, half the photography examples on my site are 'stitched' in PS's merge tool.
As for my navigation, I hate linear,predictable anything. I think if I'd been a Roman engineer I'd have been flogged and sent to Hadrians wall to fend off the ginger hordes, my roads might have been a little too ......interesting
Peter

Well, no flogging here -- and, no ginger hordes neither. (thanks for taking me in the spirit of my post)

Also, am in agreement about the "withering on the vine" bit.

Cheers!

@Zephyr: Have you tried again? What sort of overlap are you using?

Cheers,