7/7/2023 0 Comments Ptgui always on tip![]() When shooting outdoors, try to capture your scene when light is more diffused, such as on a cloudy day or in the early morning. Hard shadows or a changing light source (such as a setting sun) can make photo alignment difficult, as these types of conditions require the camera to use multiple light settings. When shooting outside, very bright or dark light can present challenges. An image that can be stitched in Photoshop might be problematic in PTGui, and vice versa. In such situations you may have to use a different program, such as PTGui, to get an acceptable result – it seems the mathematics behind the stitching, even if based on similar principles, have slight variations. They cover the majority of situations you’re likely to encounter, although there will be times when Photoshop doesn’t perform as expected no matter which option you choose. The latest versions of Lightroom also have stitching included.īasically, in Phototshop, there are five stitching techniques offered, plus an Auto option. Although Photoshop isn’t the only program that stitches images together, the techniques it uses are found in other programs as well. ![]() This isn’t really a camera technique – it’s what you do after you have captured your raw material (the individual shots for stitching). You can always crop it off later, but it’s much harder to add it in! 7. The stitching process can mean you lose more image area than you might think, so the vertical format ensures you get more sky and more foreground. Often a series of horizontal frames when stitched doesn’t give you sufficient area above and below the horizon. It might seem counter-intuitive to position your camera vertically to create a horizonal panorama, but this is good advice especially if you’re taking a number of frames. When selecting a tripod head, a ball head will allow you to easily level the camera, even on uneven terrain, while a rotating plate on the top of the head facilitates stitching. Modern stitching software does an excellent job of putting the images together, but you will achieve superior results more often if you align the individual exposures as accurately as possible. It is possible to take great stitched panoramas with hand-held exposures. The greater the overlap, the better the stitching software can perform. Lenses can suffer from vignetting, so the edges of the frames can be darker than the centre and this can make it difficult to produce a seamless stitch. In a scene with lots of detail, less overlap is required to obtain a stitch, but there are other reasons for having an overlap of 30 to 40 percent. For this reason, you must overlap your frames so there’s plenty of points to use. Stitching software needs to identify and locate points in one image that match points in the next time. This can still be a good idea for raw shooters as many raw processing programs use the camera’s settings as a starting point for processing the file. For the same reason we use manual exposure mode, select a manual white balance setting, such as daylight or tungsten. However, if you’re shooting JPEGs, then it’s important to maintain a consistent colour balance in all of the exposures. ![]() If you’re shooting raw files, then this setting isn’t so important because you can adjust the white balance setting at the time you process the files. ![]() Don’t forget to turn it back on afterwards! 3. You don’ t have to manually focus the lens initially – you can use the autofocus system to lock in the focus as required, but then carefully turn off the autofocus (usually a switch on the camera body itself, so you shoudn’t accidentally move the focus setting). Just as your exposure can change as you pan the camera to capture the stitch images, so can the autofocus be fooled into focusing on something you mightn’t be expecting. For seamless stitches, ensure your camera is set to manual exposure mode. This causes problems when you stitch the images together – they may align perfectly, but it’s not much good if one part of the image is light and the other part is dark. Variations in the brightness of the scene will produce variations in exposure if you leave your camera set to any automatic mode. When taking a series of stitching images, ensure you set the camera to manual exposure. Here are my top tips and tricks to help you: 1. Manual exposure Fortunately, you don’t need specialist equipment to make it work, although you can certainly buy specialist equipment to make the process easier and more accurate.
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