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I happened to be at Bondi Beach yesterday and took a series of 11 portrait orientation hand-held shots with a view to making a panorama...

Here are the results from 3 popular software tools:

First - PhotoMerge within Photoshop - very disappointing due to the banding and the lack of subtlety in the merging of the photos



Secondly - the same shots with Autostitch - a few problems with exposure balancing, but not too bad...




Thirdly - Panorama Factory... Not Perfect, but by far the Best...
Despite the additional cost, I think that I'll be buying this software soon...



Any similar experiences???
Any contradictory views???
Any other pano software tools I should be trying out???
Anything I could have done better with the various tools???

I vote for Panorama Factory too. With nothing fancy, just handheld clicks - I've managed to produce quite good multi-shot pano's using Pano Factory.

I went down this road quite a while ago and came to the same conclusion.

Panorama Factory (PF) is the best stitching programme you can get (IMHO)

All the panos i have done are with PF. As you say, it's not perfect, i've had quite a few panos come out looking crap. But it is the best and if your original shots are good, then it will do a fantastic job of stitching.

Good Examples:
http://killakoala.smugmug.com/gallery/292396

Thanks Leek, great example to show the comparisons, helps us all

give paint shop pro photo album 5 a go ... i was impressed with it ... just drag and drop

cheers rob

I'm happy with Pano Factory
have I said that before? probably, and will probably say it again...



in fact, here goes...
I'M HAPPY WITH PANORAMA FACTORY!

Leon, anyone would be happy with that pano

Another vote for Panorama Factory. I'm very impressed with both the ease of use and the price. I stitched together 19 photos for a 270° view of Mt Isa. It took probably 20 minutes to complete, but the result is excellent, no visible joins at all.

cheers
Peter

My PANO software setup:

3 programs based on this tutorial:

1. Autopano-SIFT
2. Hugin
3. Enblend

It's a very twiddly and a complex procedure, but it is by far the best setup i've used (very powerful). The best part? It's all free!

You can start by just using Hugin, which is a frontend for command-based tool called Panorama Tools.

There are a heap of tutes based on PT out there. Give it a shot, if you got the patience you won't be disappointed.

Cheers
- beej

I've done some quite good handhelds with pano factory. I think it does a pretty good with exposure balancing, image rotation and stitching.

Take a look at autostich and then take a look at pano factory. Autostitch didn't do a very good job with the horizon, it's like a wave. PF has done a pretty good job though keeping it straight and level.

Need I add... Pano Factory. Looked what Beej suggested a while back, but I'm a lazy sod & the complexity put me off big time.

sheepie wrote:I'm happy with Pano Factory
have I said that before? probably, and will probably say it again...



in fact, here goes...
I'M HAPPY WITH PANORAMA FACTORY!

Could you please say that again Sheepie?

I would have to agree with most people here that I have not been disappointed by PF.

The PhotoMerge in Photoshop looks unusable.

Must admit to using only three methods in the past, they being Canon Photostitch, Photoshop and Panorama Factory.

Photostitch - good results, not great but good
Photoshop - must be to do with my proficiency with PS but not good result
Panorama Factory - very, very good results once I used this I stopped looking.


Cheers,
Terry

ive always found autostitch to be the best, but can depend on the variables of the shot.

leek wrote:Any other pano software tools I should be trying out???

I've used <a href="http://www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr.htm">PTAssembler</a> which uses PanoTools, so I guess it would be similar to Hugin.

Are you source files available somewhere? I could run it through:
- Autopano
- PTAssembler
- Enblend
It only takes a couple of clicks.

Autopano does a awesome job. Enblend is alright, but I like to do the blending myself.

Daniel