Warping to Correct Panorama Errors

[sheeny (Al)]

If you've ever played about with panoramic mosaics, you've probably found that if your tripod is off level or the camera is not square to the axis of the tripod than some undesirable distortions can creep in.

Attached is an example of a little panorama taken yesterday with the Oly C5060WZ. Three photos assembled with Panorama Maker and saved for the web in PS CS2. In the first image you'll see the undesirable slope of the waterfall ledges due to a combination of conical error (camera not square to tripod) and the tripod not being correctly leveled.

The second image is the same after warping the top left hand corner. The procedure in PS CS2 is:

Select, All
Edit, Transform, Warp

In this case all I did was stretch the top left hand corner vertically, and then move the top and left hand side handles up by a proportional amount.

It may be worth having a play about with Warping or other transforms if you find the end result of your pano mosaic is a bit less than desired.

Al.

[petal666]

Subtle but effective.

[iceman (Mike)]

That's a nice demonstration Al, thanks. A nice panorama too! Where was it taken?

Some panorama makers correct for the barrel distortion.

[sheeny (Al)]

It's taken on Kanangra Brook - the top of Kalang Canyon.

Panorama Maker generally does a pretty good job of barrel distortion. The problem in this case was poor leveling of both the camera and tripod. Sometimes it's hard to get good help! I don't think any software would really fix that automatically! I couldn't have got the composition with the camera/tripod level, but unfortunately I didn't manage to keep the camera square to tripod either. So there was a bit of a mix of deliberate and "unforced" errors, but if you looked at the warped image without seeing the original I think it would be an exceptional eye to pick it!

Al.