Photo Stitching Software

[iceman]

Autostitch has to be the best thing invented for photo stitching.. It's a shame it only works on Jpeg's.

I've got several panoramas from Coffs Harbour that I want to stitch up, and I thought I'd let PhotoMerge (in Photoshop CS2) have a try at the hi-res TIF's, and the results were terrible. Completely unusable.

I converted the RAWs to JPEG's, and let autostitch have a go, and the results are fantastic. Absolutely amazing how good it is at it.

However they're jpegs!

Anyone want to recommend any other photo-stitching software that's almost as good as autostitch (and that works on hi-res TIF files)?

My next step (if I can't find any free software) is to probably buy the software that uses the autostitch technology, so that it can do just as good a job on the hi-res files.

[iceman]

Here's just one example (from the jpegs) in autostitch. Handled it without breaking out a sweat.
Photoshop PhotoMerge made a meal of it.

[sheeny]

Mike,

I've been using Arcsoft Panorama Maker for years. Works fine on TIFFs, etc. Less that $40 for a regoed copy. Allows manual alignment if the auto run doesn't do well enough. I'd suggest getting a trial version first. http://www.arcsoft.com/products/panoramamaker/
I see from the web site the new version also handles RAW files.

My brother was telling me just a couple of weeks ago there's another program called something like "panorama factory"(???:shrug: ) that a lot of guys on th photo forum he's on swear by.

Years ago I used to use Panavue, which did a great job but the trial version used to stick it's logo all over your image. Never tried the registered version.

Al.

[sheeny]

Here's the link for Panorama Factory

http://www.panoramafactory.com/

Al.

[Striker]

PM sent Mike.

[sheeny]

Autostitch generally does it's job very well! It's funny though, sometimes on program handles a set of images bettwe than another... I have had one example where PS Photomerge did a better job than autostitch!

How much overlap did you have on these images Mike?

A few tips I've developed over the years:

for wide angle lens, allow about 1/3 frame overlap
for telephoto, you can usually get away with less overlap
for straight lines in the foreground, increase overlap to avoid angular joins (software can better warp the line to a curve)
of course tripod mounting always helps, but handheld can work OK too as long as foreground is not too close.Al.

[petal666]

I'm yet to find a program better than this one.

[iceman]

I tried it on the images I have, it did a terrible job.

Autopano Pro (which uses autostitch technology) still does the most amazing, seemless job or stitching mosaics together of any program i've tried.

[janoskiss]

How about staying with Autostitch and setting compression to a minimum and upscaling your images (double size or larger) before stitching?

[Doug]

I agree with Steve, except I'm uncertain of the benefit of scaling up before stiching. I have a 4 image Panorama stitched using 100% scale and 100% jpeg Q set throught the edit menu of Auto stitch. This series was taken handheld from on board the old Steamship 'Earnst' in NZ. We were travelling at the time, and though we were travelling left to right, the sequence was captured right to left..
Image below is a comparison between the original and the corresponding part of the Panorama. There is some loss, but not a lot.
The stitch S/w that comes with the canon is :mad2:
Cheers,
Doug

[iceman]

I ended up buying Autopano Pro. It's not exactly cheap (99 euros) but it truly is the best stitching software i've tried, and i've tried a lot of the ones on the market.

The speed at which it works, the blending and perspective correction, completely automatic, feed it images in any order, etc.

It can take my 47meg TIF's as input, or it can also work off the RAW's. It produces a BMP, JPEG or Photoshop PSD/PSB file as output. It can also do HDR processing but i'm still investigating exactly what that means in this context.

Yes autostitch can work off the jpegs, but even saved at 100% quality, you're losing detail. Then autostitch needs to save it again, then you need to resize and save it again.. every time you save it you're losing detail.

I'm not keen on spending so much time and effort preserving data using RAWs and TIFFs, only to throw away data when I want a panorama to print, for example.

[ving]

tried imerge mike? asi uses it and it seems to work fine.

[Doug]

$163 AUD is not exactly petty cash. Yes ok on the Jpeg losses, I have yet to venture into the realm of the Raw. So far, I have only used the beast for happy snapping in NZ, and had limited file storage. 30m ipod that locked solid every time I tried to upload image files, would not even power down.

cheers, Doug

[bird]

Hi Mike, have you seen HUGIN ?

hugin.sourceforge.net

cheers, Bir