Stitching photos

Is there a free program online? Will photoshop CS2 do this?

How should I shoot the photos I plan on stitching together. I understand they will be taken from the same spot and on a tripod but what about camera settings?

Thanks in advance, I'd like to get some night shots of the city sky line tonight and stitch them together.

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Originally Posted by StreetDoc

Is there a free program online? Will photoshop CS2 do this?

How should I shoot the photos I plan on stitching together. I understand they will be taken from the same spot and on a tripod but what about camera settings?

Thanks in advance, I'd like to get some night shots of the city sky line tonight and stitch them together.

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Yes PhotoShop CS2 can stitch photos together, and there are plugins to make it easier. But I use: Smoky City's Designs "Pamorama Factory" they have a try before you buy. They also use to have version 1.3 for free but I can't find it any more on their site.

Check out this link: http://www.panoguide.com/

I already have CS2, can anyone explain how to do it or know of a online tutorial?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...titching.shtml

It's down on the page.

Awesome! Thank you!!!

Photoshop will do this although it is not nearly as good as panorama tools. You probably want ptgui, the graphical interface version. Not too expensive and top notch. You can download a trial too.

I have stitched a few without using a tripod. Just line up the focus lights in the viewfinder with the horizon and overlap your pictures 25 to 50%. Shot in full manual, MF, Manual white balance ect. No settings can change on the camera as you pan across. The hard part for me was getting it right in the field. Stitching it on the computer was easy.

Greg is right on the money about the settings. Find a nice place to get a meter reading and then use those settings and go to full manual. Otherwise you will end up with strange banding where the images overlap.

For a free application, you should look at Autostitch (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html) . It's pretty slow but does a pretty good job of the stitching itself. I also usually try to shoot portrait orientation (vertical) for horizontal panoramas. I think it produces better results, but you shoot more shots.

PC

As a side note I have one set of photos, which generates OUT OF MEMORY ERROR. So don't try a 180 deg at 200mm there are limits even if you have 2 GIG of ram.

You probably could stitch a few images at a time, then stitch those images together, so you can get your 180 deg image

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Originally Posted by jorgemonkey

You probably could stitch a few images at a time, then stitch those images together, so you can get your 180 deg image

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Unluckily until I add ram it will be an no go. And I really should retake that photo series, as it's just up the street not even an mile. And I have to get a shade for the cokin filters before I reshoot anyway. (12-15 telephoto images @ 6 mega pixels the program just runs out of room):mad2:

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Originally Posted by PrevailingConditions

Greg is right on the money about the settings.

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Absolutely - note that white balance, aperture, shutter speed and focus can't change for the series. This is one of those times that a separate spot meter is really nice - check several places in the area that you will shoot and come up with your exposure based on those separate readings.

PhotoStitch shipped free with my Canon 20D and it does the job well, and simply.
Doing it in PhotoShop CS2 was slower, more involved, much more manual twiddling, and didn't produce a better result.

I wrote about stitching on my website...it's a pretty rough tutorial, but it includes the names of the software you need (free)

here.

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Originally Posted by Mr Yuck

I wrote about stitching on my website...it's a pretty rough tutorial, but it includes the names of the software you need (free)

here.

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I went to a panorama seminar where they were demoing "Stitch It" I think a $500 program. Great program but I never have had the $$$. The just of it you need the lens to rotate around it's No-parallax-point, see link: http://www.panoguide.com/howto/panoramas/parallax.jsp

Please not unless you have items in the foreground the is not an real image program but it is a program it you are doing 360 degree real state photography for web house tours.

How to find the No-parallax-point: place an paper towel or TP roll (enpty) and adjust the roll for a straight on view with an distant object you can see though the hole. You will need also a stand the can be rotated where you can position the camera on (a line thought the pivot point is needed). You place the camera with the lens centered on the line view and rotate, move and repeat, less movement is the object. You will have found the No-parallax-point of the lens the view though the roll doesn't change at all. Measure the distance from the tripod socket the pivot point, and that is your offset from the tripod screw. A simple measurement from the center of the lens to the bottom plate of your camera gives the lateral offset.