Switzerland Pano

[dawesy]

So, this started out with me experimenting with stitching and HDR, and wound up with more than I expected.

This was made by stitching 14 hand held shots together via Lightroom into CS4. I then created a virtual copy of the resulting stitched TIFF and upped the exposure on one to fix the foreground, and dropped it on the other to fix all but the blown segment of sky. Lastly, I exported to Photomatix from Lightroom those two images to get this. I only slightly tweaked the tone mapping, need to learn how that works.

For an experiment, starting with what I thought was junk, it's not too bad!



These are two of the original images to give an idea of the starting point

[wendellt]

that first image is whimsically wonderful, great work

[DaveB]

Not bad, but that blown-out area that almost looks like a while cloud by itself is quite prominent.

Given that this was generated from a single set of originals (non-bracketed) I would try a different approach and see how it goes:

1. Start with the RAW files in Lightroom.
2. Using Exposure, Brightness, Blacks, and the Tone Curve (and whatever else helps) adjust them all with the same settings. You should be able to boost those underexposed areas significantly.
   Presumably you already used Sync Settings to get them all to the same WB, Chromatic Aberration, etc. Do the same with the other settings.
3. For instance, adjust the Exposure on the frames with the blown-out sky to recover it (is that possible or was it blown too far?), synchronise to the others, then consider which setting to tweak next on which frame. Just be sure to sync after each tweak.
4. Then stitch them together in CS4.
5. The horizon's doing weird things here. The building on the right is vaguely vertical, but then the image curves over to the left. Consider warping the stitched result to clean things like this up before cropping to a rectangle.
   Flatten the stitched image, then double-click on the Background in the Layers dialog to convert it to a normal layer before Transforming it.

Is HDR really required to achieve this?

Be aware that the behaviour of Fill is not consistent across different images (it's got a few too many "smarts" in it) so avoid using it here. You can always apply it to the final stitched image if required.

[dawesy]

Thanks Wendell!

Dave, I agree this could probably be done better, when I started on it I felt the originals were too average to make anything good and was purely experimenting with the stitching to see how it worked before I attack some of the better ones I think I have. I was surprised at how well it ended up though.

Very little (read nothing) was done to these before I stitched. It wasn't until I messed with the stitched file I realised how much I could pull back and, since I have just installed PhotoMatix and wanted to play figured what the heck. When I have some time I will certainly be revisiting this and looking at doing a lot of it pre stitch. The full size image is a 2.5GB TIFF... Suffice to say I'm glad my new PC is grunty.

The Horizon I'll have to look at on a larger version, the building on the left looks pretty vertical to me on this little one. Most of that curve in the foreground hill is actually there. The drop off into the valley was rather abrupt, it's actually a ski field in Winter, you can see the chair lift coming up in the middle. I agree there is a lopsided feel about it though, something else to play with.

As for the blown sky, it's pretty blown. I used about -1.5 exposure to get the sky back here, and +0.5 for the foreground. I have a -4 at home and the sky is still blown, but there is more detail on the edges. I've tried masking it to just bring back the patch, but it looks terrible, hence the HDR attempt.

Anyway, thanks for all the ideas. I think I'll do the stitches that have better raw material and revisit this when I have a better handle on it and more time to play with.

[DaveB]

Dave, I agree this could probably be done better, when I started on it I felt the originals were too average to make anything good and was purely experimenting with the stitching to see how it worked before I attack some of the better ones I think I have. I was surprised at how well it ended up though.

I can't count the numbers of times I spent ages waiting for the computer to stitch some images, and THEN realised I hadn't spotted some dust, fixed CA in the originals, etc. Now I try to spit out some smaller versions and stitch THOSE, clear in the knowledge that it's just an experiment.

The Horizon I'll have to look at on a larger version, the building on the left looks pretty vertical to me on this little one. Most of that curve in the foreground hill is actually there. The drop off into the valley was rather abrupt, it's actually a ski field in Winter, you can see the chair lift coming up in the middle. I agree there is a lopsided feel about it though, something else to play with.

I hope you don't mind me playing with your image, but these lines may help illustrate:

I drew the verticals roughly along the vertical edges of the buildings (working on the assumption that they were built using spirit levels) and the horizontal line vaguely along where it "feels" like the horizon line would be.

[dawesy]

I can't count the numbers of times I spent ages waiting for the computer to stitch some images, and THEN realised I hadn't spotted some dust, fixed CA in the originals, etc. Now I try to spit out some smaller versions and stitch THOSE, clear in the knowledge that it's just an experiment.

I can see myself making that error a lot. I've got Lightroom and being able to right click and stich in PS makes it easy to jump the gun. Lucky I've got 8GB ram and 4 cores

I hope you don't mind me playing with your image, but these lines may help illustrate:

I drew the verticals roughly along the vertical edges of the buildings (working on the assumption that they were built using spirit levels) and the horizontal line vaguely along where it "feels" like the horizon line would be.

No issue with that. It confirms what I thought I saw, the buildings are OK. I agree you've picked the right horizon, the reason it 'dips' on the left of that red line is because the mountains are coming back towards the point the photo was taken from, ie the mist is sitting in a bowl. Not sure I described that right, but basically it's the same as on the right, but just a more gradual thing.

In short, the photo looks the same way the scene did. That doesn't mean it looks right to someone who didn't see it for real though.

Oh, and it's Switzerland, the building will be precise I'd expect. The clocks on the train stations had second hands, every train I caught closed it's doors to leave on time to the second. Love that country.

[DaveB]

It confirms what I thought I saw, the buildings are OK.

Huh? Those "verticals" on the left are not vertical. In fact the building on the right is leaning to the right slightly. It's all because the image is curved. Probably a result of having the back of the camera not vertical, and then Photoshop's stitching doing it's thing. Thus my comments about using Transform (in fact Warp) to tweak it after stitching.

[dawesy]

It confirms what I thought I saw, the buildings are OK.

Huh? Those "verticals" on the left are not vertical. In fact the building on the right is leaning to the right slightly. It's all because the image is curved. Probably a result of having the back of the camera not vertical, and then Photoshop's stitching doing it's thing. Thus my comments about using Transform (in fact Warp) to tweak it after stitching.

Right you are. Not enough caffeine in me this morning. Carry on!

I'll definitely revisit this one with your advice in mind when I have some time.

Thanks.