Panorama tool

[Daniel]

Is there a secret to using the Panorama tool?

I don't have many photos to try it with, but a few years ago I was standing on the top of a hill and took some photos with the intention of stitching them together. Of course, I never got around to it - but just now gave them a go in Xtreme Pro 4.

The colours and contrast of two pictures don't match the other three, but clicking 'Enhance' on them pretty much sorts them out. Using the Panorama tool though reverts them back to their unchanged state, and when they are stitched they look awful.

The top version is the automatic one, the bottom version is the automatic panorama output from the first three images, I skipped the second from the right and put the far right image in myself using transparency/feathering:

http://diniel.com/forums/panorama/holmfirth-crap.jpg

http://diniel.com/forums/panorama/holmfirth-manual.jpg

I was at the new St Pancras station on Saturday morning and I took a few pictures - I wish I took some more, because it did a great job of putting them together:

http://diniel.com/forums/panorama/stpthumb.jpg

I've uploaded larger versions (2500 pixels wide) of the hillside view and of St Pancras station along with thumbnails of the original individual photos, and have uploaded the .xar of the hillside pictures in case anyone wants to play with the nearly-stitching.

Anyone had any better luck with pictures like my hillside one? Even using 'Enhance' in the photo tool, saving a bitmap copy and deleting the original (absolutely not the point of the Photo tool, I know, but I wanted to 'force' the Panorama tool to use the enhanced/balanced images), then trying the Panorama with the 'enhanced' one doesn't give as good a result as you might expect. I'm sure it's possible, because the station output is pretty good.

[handrawn]

You may need to make bitmap copies of the enhanced versions and use those?

Not used Panorama tool, but I have noticed that the bitmap tracer works on the original and not the photo tool enhanced version and I need to make a copy of it first.

[unlike with xpe where the enhanced version was used]

[Xhris]

If after editing the photo, you optimise it using the new optimise feature, it will create a bitmap copy (CBC) replacing the original which the stitcher will use. Optimise is slightly different from CBC; I'm sure they could be combined in the future.

[raynerj1]

I have had pretty good luck with the tool being premitted to adjust the pictures on it's own. It is not as good as a fisheye lens, but it does a decent job. See Attached.

[ss-kalm]

I was quite impressed with the test that I ran. It seemed to stitch the photographs together seamlessly.

[jclements]

Jungfraujock, Switzerland last June. The stitcher couldn't position #4 in the proper vertical alignment.

Great job on the first three especially considering the people were moving and the cloud-shadows changed rapidly.

[jclements]

Some of the frames shown below (especially the two or three on the bottom-right) I thought would work but nothing really did the trick.

[jclements]

This one REALLY SURPRISED ME. I didn't think the autostitcher could handle the same man at different different distances and although one person, the lady in the middle was eliminated (I didn't like her anyway), the result was pretty miraculous in how it decided to maintain the cropping .... especially when compared to what I did manually.

[ss-kalm]

I think that the autostitching AI gives quite an acceptable finish. Probably won't win any photography awards, But to someone who hasn't seen the originals, I think that the finished product is very good.

[jclements]

Hope I'm not going overboard. Doing these brings back some awesome memories. This my daughter Kristin. Her graduation present from college was traveling together with me for 4 weeks from hostile to hostile. I met her in France after she finished her class in Spain on Hemingway, then we traveled to norhern Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. I only had a Nikon Coolpix with no viewfinder just a damn LCD display ... big mistake.