Is The Panorama Factory worth buying?

[gleff]

As the subject says.. i'm after some good software for doing panorama's.

My first impressions of the software is, it looks easy, and does the trick.

Just wondering if anyone has an opinion on whether it's worth buying.

Geoff

[kipper]

Well I personally think it's the best software available out of the ones I've tried. Now whether you want to spend the money on it is another matter.

[krpolak]

I have check few and as my experience says the best solution is Photoshop + skilfull hand. As an example look at my images here:


http://www.dslrusers.net/viewtopic.php?t=10528

All of them are panoramas assembled from 6-7 photos.

Also recently I have been doing panoramas containing a lot of complex architecture and foliage and this solution worked the best.


Regards,

K.Polak

[Killakoala]

PanFact certainly makes life easier and can sort out a few problems you might have when you take the photos, but it won't repair bad parrllax error but will still provide enough flexibility to create panos taken hand-held.

[glamy]

Geoff,
I do not use this one, but have a look here:
http://www.panoguide.com/
Cheers,
Gerard

[oli]

I used to use Panorama Factory, but then I tried Arcsoft Panorama Maker which is better IMO.

Well worth trying.

[sheepie]

I use Panorama Factory, and (like Steve) have had great results handheld. The results you get from using a tripod speak for themselves

While I have tried a few others, I can't really compare them too much - other than to say Panorama Factory has been able to do for me with default settings what most of the others couldn't do. If usability, good results, and value for money are your criteria, it is my VERY humble opinion that you would be hard pressed to find something better

[gecko]

Hello all

Can I build on gleff's question slightly:

How much better is the $$$ version of Panorama Factory compared to the free version?

Which version of Panorama factory are forum members using?

Cheers
Gecko

[sheepie]

...How much better is the $$$ version of Panorama Factory compared to the free version?

ummm - the Sydney Skyline print didn't work on the freeware version (not with defaults anyway).

[gecko]

I have been playing with the free version at a fairly superficial level - just suck the images into the program and let it do its thing. I have not played around with the settings. My results have been pretty dismal thus far with lots of ghosting that I am putting down to poor image capture technique!

Is the free version worth persisting with?

I appreciate that even the best software won't make crappy captures look good....

Cheers
Gecko

[birddog114]

I appreciate that even the best software won't make crappy captures look good....

Same as with top glasses and tools and bad techniques.

[gecko]

Same as with top glasses and tools and bad techniques

You know me well, Birddog!

Gecko

[Michael]

Photoshop CS

Automate > photostitch.

thats what I use with a bit of a healing tool to fix up any slight variations with colour in the sky.

[gleff]

Thanks everyone for your input. I've now tried a few of them, and the trial version of the panorama factory is so far winning.

Cheers
Geoff

[Oneputt]

Geoff I was playing around with this program on the weekend with some pleasing results. For a dummy like me it is very easy to use.

[petal666]

Another vote for pano factory, it works extrememly well when the lens is rotated around the nodal point. One thing that it can't do is multi row pano's.

[Wocka]

Geoff,

I did this image in Panorama Factory V3.4. All the default settings, except I told the wizard the focal length. I haven't tried playing with the settings, other than default and I seem to get fairly decent pics.
http://www.dslrusers.net/viewtopic.php?t=10275

This is about 6 images stitched together, images taken on a tripod, but I have also some some hand held and had great results also.

I tried to stitch the above shot in CS2 Photostitch and it just couldn't do it. Maybe my settings in CS2 but I don't think there are that many.

Cheers

[kipper]

You sure about that Petal. The version that I have shows cylindrical or spherical. I would of thought the spherical would have been for multi-row. Could be wrong. Haven't really done anything multirow so I wouldn't know.
I'm sure you could fool it anyway into do it.

eg.

Step 1
Join all your horizontal rows together into row1.tiff to rowY.tiff

Step 2
Rotate 90deg CCW all of these images in PS or whatever app takes ya fancy

Step 3
Load these rotated images starting at row1 to rowY.


Not sure what effect it would have with distortion but it might just work

[petal666]

You sure about that Petal. The version that I have shows cylindrical or spherical. I would of thought the spherical would have been for multi-row. Could be wrong. Haven't really done anything multirow so I wouldn't know.
I'm sure you could fool it anyway into do it.

100% sure, I was reading about it on their support page the other day. There are work arounds but it doesn't natively do it.

[gleff]

Another vote for pano factory, it works extrememly well when the lens is rotated around the nodal point. One thing that it can't do is multi row pano's.

This is the one thing that turns me off the software.. oh.. and the price, but other than that.. it looks pretty good.

[gecko]

I have just downloaded the 30 day trial of Panorama Factory Version 4 and had a play (ran outside at lunch time and took some images).

I am impressed. This version is so much better than the freeware (should I have really been surprised? ). My images were handheld with no consideration of rotating on the nodal point etc and the result is great (expect for the big watermark )

Looks like this will be my next purchase....

Gecko

[kipper]

Gecko, I've done an 11 image handheld and it worked really well too. I'm using an evaluation version at the moment.

[stubbsy]

Another vote for pano factory, it works extrememly well when the lens is rotated around the nodal point. One thing that it can't do is multi row pano's.

This is the one thing that turns me off the software.. oh.. and the price, but other than that.. it looks pretty good.

Well you get what you pay for Geoff. if you want free and multi row there's AutoStitch

Personally, if I was intending to do Pano's I'd spend the bucks & get Panorama Factory. After all V 4.0 is just out at a special discounted price of US$59.95. How cheap do you want it?

[johnd]

Another vote for pano factory, it works extrememly well when the lens is rotated around the nodal point. One thing that it can't do is multi row pano's.

Oh yes it can. Well sort of. You just need to do 2 passes. Stitch the individual rows and save them. Then open them up rotated 90 degrees and stitch again.

I brought Panorama Factory a few months back and prefer it heaps. It seems to do a lot better stitching job than PS CS2s autostitch. It's heaps faster than PS and seems to do a better job when blending the sky without leaving any blend marks.

[petal666]

Another vote for pano factory, it works extrememly well when the lens is rotated around the nodal point. One thing that it can't do is multi row pano's.

Oh yes it can. Well sort of. You just need to do 2 passes. Stitch the individual rows and save them. Then open them up rotated 90 degrees and stitch again.

We covered that already in this thread.

[johnd]

Another vote for pano factory, it works extrememly well when the lens is rotated around the nodal point. One thing that it can't do is multi row pano's.

Oh yes it can. Well sort of. You just need to do 2 passes. Stitch the individual rows and save them. Then open them up rotated 90 degrees and stitch again.

We covered that already in this thread.

Woops

[Oneputt]

I took the plunge and bought it today. A very reasonably priced piece of software, and the updated version recognises the D2X.

[gleff]

I'll probably buy it once i've saved up enough to pay for my CPAP machine. Damn expensive piece of equipment for what it does.. All it does is blow air.

[Paul]

Gleff,
Whats a CPAP machine?
I could google it, but I would rather indulge in human contact

[marcotrov]

Ok I'm keen to have a look at this Pano Factory now that you guys have sparked my interest in the art of Pano.
cheers
marco

[gleff]

Gleff,
Whats a CPAP machine?
I could google it, but I would rather indulge in human contact

It's actually not photography related.. it's a device used by sufferers of Sleep Apnea.. It's sort of like a Ventolator I guess.. it continuously blows air down your throat while you sleep to keep you breathing It's just a bit expensive so I need to save up for it.

[mudder]

G'day Geoff,
I've just had a quick play with the trial software v4 (which I assume would be the same software once purchased, I assume the key just gets rid of the watermark).

Seemed to do a fairly good job, there was a bit of ghosting which I'm assuming (and hoping) was due to me using a "normal" tripod head, not catering for the nodal point of the lens (and the clouds were moving which I assume was the reason for ghosting in the clouds). PF can produce layered PSD, with each layer being each blended image component, so you can do any spiffy PP after the blend on each "part" of the image.

Autostitch seems good but takes ages in comparison, is VERY memory hungry and only produces jpeg output, if it produced tif I'd probably be happy with it, but want some form of lossless format.

Tried PTGui but even using the control points the output wasn't anywhere near as polished as PF, least on the examples I tried, maybe I just wasn't driving it properly which is a distinct possibility knowing me

Tried PS CS2 (which does a terrific job) but leaves a lot of manual work remaining smoothing out any exposure differences, whereas PF seems to blend them smoothly. I always shoot manual with auto-focus turned off once I've set the focus, I assume the differences in exposure are due to changing light conditions between shots (clouds moving etc).

On the examples I tried, PF seemed to come out the fastest and required the least manual "fix-ups" or clean-ups, so I'll probably end up purchasing PF. Seems very competitively priced to me being $59US.

Cheers.

[nito]

pano factory 4.0 is heaps better than ver 3.4. I tried version 3.4 in Oct and found that it suffered from lots of ghosting. Used panofactory 4.0 on the same image and the result was perfect! So good that I purchased it!

[petal666]

If you a decent job of taking the images you don't get ghosting in v3.4

[nito]

If you a decent job of taking the images you don't get ghosting in v3.4

used a tripod but no pano head.