Panorama fails
I have a sequence of five hand held raw images that I wish to composite into a panorama.
When I select the images and the "Pano" Icon, I see a message " Loading images - 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%" etc, (so it looks as if On1 is loading 5 images) but after the program completes the blending, the resulting composite comprises only two of my original five images.
Underneath the completed panorama is a note which says "2 out of 5 photos merged."
If I convert all the images to jpeg they stitch perfectly in Image Composite Editor.
I tried switching off lens correction in On1 but that has not had any effect.
Any suggestions?
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Most likely there is not enough overlap for the program to work with. You can try stitching them together in sections then stitching the sections together. Find 2 of the images that are consecutive and didn't get merged into the original attempt and try to merge them.
If that doesn't work you'll have to use a 3rd party stitching program. Does Image Composite Editor accept TIFFs? I would select all the pano's images the go to the Editor and make basic Tone & Color adjustments and nothing else. After adjusting one image to your liking Sync them all while you're still in the editor. Then go through each of them to insure the edits haven't blown out any highlights or blocked up any blacks. If you need to make an adjustment be sure to Sync it to the rest of them.
Once you've got all the images adjusted use the Send To command to export the images to TIFFS and send those to Image Composite Editor. I suggest TIFFs so you don't get jpeg compression after merging on top of the jpeg compression used to send the images to the ICE.
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Thanks for the suggestions.
Each image has at least 50% overlap, yet I can only find two that will merge as a panorama. With the others, even selecting two at a time, I get a message that there is not enough information to create a panorama.
I don't know if ICE will accept tiff files, I'm not at my editing computer at the moment so I cannot check. That's obviously the way to go and I prefer to work with a 16-bit image if I am doing further editing. I have adjusted the files in the way you suggest when I created the jpegs that I used in ICE.0 -
50% overlap should work. I assume you were using manual exposure mode so all the exposures are identical?
Would you be willing to make your raw files available for me to download? I'd be glad to take a look. I have AutoPano Pro I can give the a try with too and see how it responds as well as looking in ON1. Zip them together then upload the zip file to a sharing service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or WeTransfer then post the download link here.
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Upon further inspection I think I can see what the problem is.
I was trying out a new ultra-wide angle lens (10mm focal length on FF) and I think the program cannot cope with the change of perspective between each frame due to the extreme angle of view, especially as the foreground is quite close. The pair of frames that do stitch have much less foreground detail.
I think I need to try again with a less extreme FL, but it's strange that ICE can cope with the images.It's not really that important, I was just experimenting after all.
Thanks for your help and suggestions.
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You might want to pass those images along to support so the engineers have something to work with to improve the stitching algorithm.
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OK. ICE does support tiff files, and it deals with all 5 of these images just fine.
I'm not familiar with these file sharing sites, but I think I have created a link to DropBox:https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9o0cjtnfzfzbux5/AABrO4uN0Ah5yc2cDN8wh8KCa?dl=0
Could you let me know if you can access these, and could you please give me the contact details of the support engineers?
If these .CR2 files are downloadable, I can send the link to the support team.0 -
The download link worked just fine, thanks. We don't have any direct contact with the engineers. You can send the download link to support wit the Submit a request link below.
I've downloaded the image files and I'lll let you know what I find after I play with them for a bit.
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I couldn't get it to work in anything I tried. Even AutoPano Pro left out huge chunks of the image although it did get all 5 of them together.
I see it was raining when you took them. I wonder if the raindrops are causing problems. In the areas where the terrain matches sometimes the brightness and focus do not because of the drop on the lens. In APP it was the areas with the most raindrops that were left out of the image. I've never seen it do anything like that before. :D
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the water drops are the problem. I removed them with the retouching tools then exported to tiffs which I sent to APP. It still had problems, areas that were blank, but less than when I sent the RAW un-retouched files. Photo RAW still only found the same 2 matches even with the retouching but then that changed the look of the terrain in those areas.
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You could blend them manually in ON1. Create a New Canvas of the necessary dimensions to hold all the images. Now load each image into its own layer and use the Transform Tool to move them into their proper locations. You can lower the layer opacities temporarily while positioning. Once everything is aligned Merge the layers together.
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I tried to align them by hand as I described above and I'm seeing a lot of lens distortion differences between the images which is preventing them from aligning.
The program is not identifying the lens type which is preventing it from applying the lens corrections. DPP reports it as a Samsung 10mm XP I think. It isn't in ON1's database. Until it gets added I wouldn't bother support with this. They'll say that's the problem and drop it.
Since ICE can stitch them for you I'd go with that.
ON1 uses the open source Lensfun database for its lens correction data. You can take pictures of a target you download and submit it for a profile to be made from. Once a profile has been added to the database ON1 will pick it up in a future update.
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Thanks very much for the feedback and comments.
Firstly - Yes, it was starting to spot with rain when I took the photos, hence the spots on the lens. I forgot to mention this, but I cannot think it is a factor in not being able to stitch the images. Being an ultra-wide angle, the lens has a very bulbous front element which makes it vulnerable to rain spots. Fortunately any marks have cleaned off and there is no lasting damage.
The stitch that was successful in MIcrosoft ICE also had rhe rainspots on both the TIFF and jpeg versions.
ICE must have a highly sophisticated stitching algorithm to produce consistent results and it does not appear to want the lens EXIF information in order to operate.
Once again, I am not at my editing computer, but I will post the ICE composite another time.The lens is the Samyang XP 10mm f3.5, and as I mentioned I have only just got it, and this was part of a general performance evaluation. Because it's a manual lens (with an electronic aperture comtrol) It doesn't generate any EXIF information. I've tried to edit the EXIF, but got some reason it doesn't show up in the On1 metadata, and as you say, it doesn't appear on the "Lensfun" data base anyway. I am aware of the method of adding lens data to the Lensfun database.
Whether this is a factor in not allowing the Pano function to work I cannot say. There is certainly a lot of distortion in the close foreground, and I put that down as to why the stitch failed. The two images that joined successfully were no's 2 & 3, which have slightly less close foreground detail than the others. I was aware, from reading other forum posts, that turning off the automatic lens correction sometimes helped with stitching, but I assume, in this case, correction is not being applied anyway.I'm thinking that the way I used it was an unfair test of the lens/software combination and when I've done panos in the past, I've found it's usually better to use a short telephoto lens (or at least a less extreme wide angle) and take more images.
I'm delighted to report that for a fan of ultra-wide angle photography, the Samyang produces outstanding results. It sharp and with good contrast, and I can highly recommend it.
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Pano stitched with Microsoft ICE.
(Rain spots removed!)0 -
As a matter of interest, I just took the five tiff files and composited them using Affinity Photo, and they all joined up perfectly.
This leaves On1 as the only program available to me which cannot composite the images into a panorama.
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