Panorama Stitching

DxO PhotoLab Feature requests
9

No you’re right, you need to click create pano in AP menu and select your images in the pop-up window.
Would be nice to be able to select from PL those you need and export them to AP.

10

Many of us have been saying for a long time PL needs to integrate better with Affinity. Its RAW conversion isn’t very good (though cameras are added mush faster than with PL!) but as a bit processing program its very good esp. for the cost. Their support is fairly good, and updates VERY good, something PL could very well learn from!

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11

Agree, software always refer to be use as plugin for Ps, would be nice to see a change and work with Serif and have it work with AP.

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12

I can certainly get behind panorama stitching, it would certainly be preferable to futzing with exporting/importing to/from yet another tool.

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13

Hello,
at the moment I’m on testing http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

Looks well for first try :wink:

14

I once tried Hugin but experienced less stitch faults with Microsoft ICE.

My workflow with DXO-PL and ICE only:

  1. take reference picture e.g. with my Nikkor 10-24 in Auto-Mode. This should look similar to the later stitch (not a must but helps)
  2. carefully analyse exposure and highlights
  3. set camera to Manual-Mode and set exposure settings from reference picture
  4. If something in foreground or multiple (>2) row stitch, a well calibrated pano-head is a must (I do not have one). A well balanced tripod in general is an advantage but it works also without one.
  5. Set focus manually to required value (check DOF) on needed lens (e.g any prime from 35 to 85 mm) and finally re-check exposure at an example picture
  6. take required pictures quickly, about 30% overlapping (lens edge sharpness?), pan the camera (usually) in portrait-format around the central axis of the lens. Be generous at the top and bottom for later cutting
  7. take another 1 or 2 sets just to be sure (motion blur, wind, clouds, people, cars etc.)
    That was the shooting part, it’s easier than it reads….

Back at home:

  1. Develop reference picture with DXO to taste (color, contrast, exposure, shadows, highlights whatever) so that it looks (about) how the later stitch should look like.
  2. copy these correction settings to one set of to be stitched pictures
  3. if not already applied, add other corrections like vignetting, distortion, CA (size as necessary but all equal). For referencing maybe take one picture and then copy correction settings again. Easy!
  4. develop pictures, output=TIF
  5. load TIFs into ICE and stitch, output again TIF
  6. Load resulting image to dxo again and check whether some volume deformation corrections and final corrections (horizon, straight lines, final cut) need to be applied. Develop again to jpg
  7. Smile!
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15

I agree. ICE is wonderful, simple, easy and fast. And free.

George

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16

Would love to see panorama RAW stitching so that I can make my panorama not leaving DxO PL and only then adjust for WB, exposure, etc. while viewing the whole panorama and keeping the flexibility to work with a RAW (DNG) file. That’s why it’s a must-have feature and is the superior solution to using external softwares relying on import/export (thus breaking the RAW process)

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17

The problem is that stitching is not a RAW operation, it is a bitmap operation. Even Photoshop doesn’t perform stitching at a RAW level; it might allow you to select RAW files but it converts them all to bitmap before doing the merge.

3 Likes
18

I want to add to that, there’s no way to fall back on the RAW data since your composed image is made from 2 or more images.

George

19

Here’s a different workflow to achieve the same results using ICE:

  1. Confirm all files of the series were shot in manual mode (to avoid problems with exposure, focus, etc.)
  2. In PL, right click the first file of the series<Show input file in Windows Explorer.
  3. In WE, Press and hold Shift, select the last file in the series highlighting all the files in the series.
  4. Right click<Stitch using ICE. ICE will launch.
  5. Create the panorama and Save.
  6. Open the panorama in PL and edit to your taste.
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20

An alternate way of doing this with ICE is:

  1. Confirm all files of the series were shot in manual mode (to avoid problems with exposure, focus, etc.)
  2. Adjust in PL as desired.
  3. In PL, click the ‘Export to application’ button, set up ‘Export to’ to use ICE and click the Export button.
  4. Create the panorama and Save.
  5. Open the panorama in PL and edit to your taste.

Either way, the downside of doing this kind of export to ICE is the creation of a set of JPG files that (usually) need to be deleted because they’re no longer needed. Just an extra workflow step, from one way of looking at it, but I think that’s the attraction of having this function integrated into PL. On the other hand, the last time I used Nik plugins, the same problem of ‘extra’ temporary files existed…

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21

JCH,

Would you explain something in your approach that I don’t understand, please? In step 2, each file is separately adjusted, then stitched in ICE.

I considered this approach, but might there be slight variations between the files that would appear in the stitched file unless the edits to the first file were copied and pasted to the following files?

My technique is to stitch first, then adjust the stitched file. This seems simpler, no copying and pasting edits, and eliminates the file difference problem.

22

In PL, you can select all the images at once and apply whatever edits you may want (e.g., ClearView, Contrast, Exposure compensation, etc.) to the whole selection. That avoids the problem of individual image differences. No copying and pasting of edits needed.

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23

This works for global changes, but how do you handle selective changes? For example, the buildings on the left of this pano photo are in very deep shadow in the original, unedited file and needed selective lightening. Global adjustments copied to the individual files would not have worked.

image
image2320×704 958 KB

24

My ‘2. Adjust in PL as desired.’ doesn’t rule out making individual PL adjustments as desired/needed, after making global adjustments (as needed). This skips sending files to WE, so simplifies your workflow.

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25

What is the difference between this and and editing after stitching?

George

26

Doing this with the raw image before export (rather than afterward with a jpg/tif/etc) gives you more flexibility in processing (i.e., 12/14 bits v 8 bits). I also allows access to DxO PL lens corrections.

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27

The camera is using a 12/14bits ad converter. But I think PL is using 16 bits.
Also my knowledge is that after the demosaicing, the conversion from singel channel pixels to 3 channel pixels, most tools are based on that rgb rasterimage, as I call it. As far as I know only white balance, exposure compensation and raw noise are falling back on the raw files.
When I use ICE, I export the files as tiff-16, ICE can save the pano as tiff-16 which can be imported in PL again and than save as a jpg.
Editing on a selection of more then one image does have the disadvantage that you see the effect on only one image
There’re some assumptions. Maybe somebody of the technical staff can clear the sky.

George

28

@Joanna and @George,

I think that there’s a misunderstanding.
I wrote:

Would love to see panorama RAW stitching

RAW stitching does not mean that the result is a RAW file. It’s not what I meant

Let me explain it differently. Assume the final panorama is issued from 3 RAW files. RAW stitching means than all modifications (exposure, WB, etc.) will be performed on each of those 3 RAW files individually. Local adjustments? On the one file where the local adjustments took place.

Then, you would render the 3 RAW files as per DxO usual process at the same time (so yes, 3 times the CPU power if you wonder) and only then, for pure on-screen display, do the stitching of the 3 rendered bitmap files (merging and auto-alignment).

Why not adjusting each file individually and export 3 JPG for later stitching in another software? Easy answer: because the fact that I can directly view an on-screen rendered version of the stitching helps me (a lot!) making some decisions. I don’t have to “guess” how it’ll look across the whole panorama if I can preview my result at once. For instance, maybe my exposure adjustment was OK when looked at each photo individually, but once stitched together it looks not OK.

That’s all to it! And it’s important.

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