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Panoramas - 1200 pixels wide

carstenw

Active member
Okay, I am awake again. Here is my current approach (probably not optimal), which I have gleaned primarily from Samuli Vahonen and denoir over on FM. Basically, there are two steps, which are done alternatingly until the correct size is reached. I use Photoshop CS4, but other programs might work as well. I am not aware of any way to do this in Lightroom or Aperture, however.

0) process image for colour and everything else
1) sharpen
2) resize
3) if final size has not been reached, go to 1)
4) add frame

For sharpening, I use three tools: "Sharpen", "Unsharp Mask" (120/0.5/5) and "Smart Sharpen" (Basic/120/0.2/Gaussian Blur), and I view some detailed area of the image at full size, i.e. 100% (Cmd+1). I start by trying "Sharpen". If that is too much sharpening, I undo it and do "Unsharp Mask". If that is too much sharpening, I undo it and try "Smart Sharpen". The latter is so gentle that I sometimes need to apply it more than once to see any difference. Once I have stepped from "Sharpen" to "Unsharp Mask", I don't go back in the next steps. Once I have gone from "Unsharp Mask" to "Smart Sharpen", I don't go back in the next steps. In other words, I start with the largest changes, and progressively move to gentler sharpening until done.

The important thing while sharpening is to avoid over-sharpening. It can be hard to detect, but generally, the "Sharpen" and "Unsharp Mask" steps have a tendency to brighten edges, and if you see that, you have gone too far. The problem is that edges brightened in an intermediate step will tend to mix with darker regions and make the photo muddy, once resized.

I have tried various single-step algorithms, but have not yet found a way to get as much nice detail as with this method. Once you get used to it, it takes only a minute or so per photo. It seems like a bit of overhead, but compared to earlier, where I used to post more images of generally lower quality, I now post fewer, better images, and this fits in well with that.

The resize step is just the standard Bicubic, and I normally resize 61%, 64%, 68% or 74% in each step. I try to avoid even divisions (0.5, 0.66, ..) since that would tend to promote artifacts. The resampling which is forced by using an uneven size acts like a gentle AA filter, and is counter-balanced by the sharpening.

Here is an example process for one of my car panoramas (two shots side by side with 30% overlap):

0) process in Aperture, and Edit in CS4
1) "Smart Sharpen" twice with above settings (Sharpen and USM were too harsh)
2) resize to 68% (61% and 64% brought me to almost exactly twice the final size in the second-last step, so I switched to 68%)
3) "Smart Sharpen" twice (three times brought bright edges)
4) resize to 68%
5) "Smart Sharpen" once
6) resize to 68%
7) "Smart Sharpen" once
8) in this resizing step, I am at 1570 and want to go to 1170, so I type the value directly
9) "Smart Sharpen" once
10) add 15 pixel wide white frame, i.e. Canvas Size and add 30 to each dimension: 1170x468 -> 1200x498

Here is the photo without sharpening, with single-step resizing and "Sharpen" at the end, and with my process. If you open them in separate tabs and switch back and forth, you can see that the first one is soft, the second one is sharp, but has some artifacts and looks a touch harsh, and the third one looks better.





 

carstenw

Active member
I am open to suggestions for improvements, by the way. This is only the best process I have found so far, and it is not perfect.

It seems like a lot of trouble, but it is a lot more work to describe than to do. Normally I am done in about 1 minute per photo. I simply open, try Sharpen, if too harsh switch to USM, if too harsh switch to Smart Sharpen, resize, etc. All quite fast. I use the available keystrokes for the important steps, i.e. Cmd+F applies the last selected filter which is super-useful, Cmd+Alt+I to resize, and Cmd+Alt+C to add the border (resize canvas).

It is probably possible to make a script which works most of the time, but I make more careful decisions when I do it step by step, so I haven't tried yet. As an example, for this particular photo, just resizing in one step and applying Sharpen actually worked quite well, and I would not have known that I could do better except by direct comparison with my usual process. For other photos that approach will not work at all.

One minor note: when working with very large panoramas, I might be more dramatic in the resizing steps, perhaps 54%. For heavily cropped normal shots, I might be more gentle, i.e. 68% or 74%. I am not certain that this is helpful, but that is what I currently do, and it appears to work well.
 

carstenw

Active member
Another note about the "brightening" of lines. If you apply sharpening, you can then repeatedly press Cmd+Z to toggle between before and after that sharpening step. This helps to judge the effect. If there is a teeny tiny brightening of lines/edges, it is okay. Anything more than that, back the sharpening out and go to a gentler method, or skip sharpening for that step if "Smart Sharpen" is too strong.
 

jlm

Workshop Member
H39 at the time, pano, not a shift
I'll dig up some more panos; can you take a shift composition as well now that I am shooting both?
 

carstenw

Active member
I recognize that roof on the right! I recall a stunning shot of that you once took, with dramatic lighting crossing it.
 

jlm

Workshop Member
this is the 160 degree view to the north of the Navy yard from the roof of the building containing my workshop...i get a lot of photos from around the Yard. If you peep closely, you might see a few locations from other shots. like that crane-barge with the red base

i printed this pano 8' wide; amazing details, absolutely amazing. shot with the blad 110 FE,
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
roadside panorama

On my recent trip around the USA, I snapped a few sequences intended to be panorama-ized. This is the first one I put together ... it's nine frames stitched together quickly using Photoshop CS4. Original file is 10768x2330 pixels in size.

It gets kinda small and ribbony at only 1200 pixels wide so I linked the photo here to a 3000 pixel wide version. There's lots of detail in there!



9 frame stitch - Ricoh GXR + A12 28mm f/2.5
 

carstenw

Active member
That panorama gives me a real sense of space! I have stopped over at such truck stops in my motorcycling days, and it brings back the feeling! Thanks for the link to the large version, I think that is a great way to handle the conflict between thread presentation and large versions.
 

carstenw

Active member
Cross-posted from the boke panorama thread. I should have spent more time getting the right exposure. I will try to go back and rectify this.

 

carstenw

Active member
On that last shot I spent a lot of time removing people, btw. It is a huge amount of work if it has to look perfect. Knowing the destination of this image (web :)), I didn't do a perfect job, but good enough. I might go back and spend more time getting a perfect panorama in-camera next time.
 

carstenw

Active member
Thanks! I am thinking in hindsight I should have stopped down to f/4 and perhaps made a two-shot HDR for a bit more detail in the sky. I will try again...
 
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