Best way to stitch a panoramic from RAW files.

[peikko]

To get the best possible professional result, when creating a stitch out of the Mavic 2 Pro Hasselblad camera.

Mavic 2 Pro creates a jpg automatically, but I would like to make the best use of the Hasselblad camera by using the RAW files.
I usually shoot with the mode, where the final stitch is put together out of nine shots.

What are your preferences and workflow. Are you doing it in Photoshop, Lightroom or with some other software ?

Still images it is obviously what I am talking about...

 

[zocalo]

The latest Photoshop/Lightroom CameraRaw does a pretty decent job for me (File, Automate, Photomerge in Photoshop), but I know Affinity Photo, Skylum's Luminar, and others all have their supporters too.

In my experience, as you have a decent amount of overlap between images and there are not too many moving objects (especially large ones!), Photoshop handles the stitching just fine. I then adjust the combined image in CameraRaw as normal to get the colours, contrast, tone how I want them, add a touch of sharpening and noise reduction, plus maybe darken the sky a grad etc. Once all that is done, crop to a rectangle, then bring into Photoshop proper for any local clean ups of blending errors, removal of clutter, more selective colour/contrast/tonal tweaks, then a final noise reduction and sharpening passes to finish the image.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I mostly just use Photoshop these days too, though I have PTGui for things it doesn't handled well (especially with empty sky panels). Another option is Microsoft ICE, which is free.

Btw: I think it's just the lens that has the Hasselblad label, not the camera. And the lens probably isn't really Hasselblad either (they're just licensing out the name).

Chris

 

[Johnmcl7]

I use the 180 panoramas (three rows of seven shots) and stitch them in Lightroom which I find works surprisingly well since it treats the stitched panorama as one large raw file which you can adjust the same as a standard raw file.

It is remarkably heavy on ram though with it managing to hit nearly 30GB ram on its own (more than anything else has managed on my system bar VM's) and it can be a bit laggy dealing with the stitched panorama but then there is a lot of data being packed in.

 

[Drumsagard]

Lightroom for me

 

[Meta4]

Btw: I think it's just the lens that has the Hasselblad label, not the camera. And the lens probably isn't really Hasselblad either (they're just licensing out the name).

It's a lot more than just the lens, as you can read here: Drone diaries: the 2018 DJI Mavic 2 Pro review
btw DJI owns Hasselblad

 

[new2mavic]

Microsoft ICE ( right ) for me. The stitching done by the camera ( left ) is crappy sometimes.

BTW. I am not aware of any software that can produce stitched images in RAW.

 

[Johnmcl7]

It's a lot more than just the lens, as you can read here: Drone diaries: the 2018 DJI Mavic 2 Pro review
btw DJI owns Hasselblad

Coming from a DJI/Hasselblad source of course they're going to make such a claim it's what makes the Hasselblad branding successful just as numerous other companies like Leica and Zeiss have found that they can make money on their name with products that have nothing to do with them. The easiest counterpoint to demonstrate that Hasselblad have nothing more than branding on the M2P is to look at the Phantom 4 Pro which despite being very similar to the M2P, has no Hasselblad branding. Beyond that Hasselblad do not have anything to do with cameras smaller than medium format which are about as different as you can get from the 1in sensor in the M2P, most of the smaller sensor cameras they've sold are hideously rebranded Sony's.

The claim it's the 'image processing' is another favourite among the branding companies especially Leica on the rebranded Panasonics because it's not so easy to disprove. I don't believe for a moment Hasselblad had anything to do with it and if they did it's admitting they're not very good at because the processing on the M2P is extremely poor and a long way behind other 1in cameras. The lens is also poor but to be fair that is compromised by the size.

I realise those seem odd criticisms given I am a fan of the M2P but that's for its sensor which is where the camera gets its advantages from and that is most definitely Sony. I find these rebrandings irritating especially since they're usually specialist, expensive camera companies that have nothing to do with even the technology their name has been slapped on, the Hasseblad Sony RX100 and e-mount cameras are a good example of how nothing was done apart from some garish casing (at least some of the Leicasonics look ok) although my favourite is an old Nokia phone with supposedly a Zeiss lens which was a single piece of plastic.

 

[Johnmcl7]

BTW. I am not aware of any software that can produce stitched images in RAW.

Technically it's not possible to output a stitched panorama as raw because it's a modified image but Lightroom (and I'm sure others) will stitch the raws together and produce an intermediate image which behaves exactly the same as one large raw image and allows you to apply the same adjustments and settings you would with a standard raw file.

 

[Drumsagard]

Technically it's not possible to output a stitched panorama as raw because it's a modified image but Lightroom (and I'm sure others) will stitch the raws together and produce an intermediate image which behaves exactly the same as one large raw image and allows you to apply the same adjustments and settings you would with a standard raw file.

This is why I use Lightroom, I have the same adjustment control over the stitched image as I have over any other RAW file.

 

[peikko]

Thank you people for your reply.

Interesting to read about the Hasselblad branding. I was not aware of it - with the same breath I must admit I could not care less about the name that is printed on the device...
Only thing that matters is the image quality.

( I have been shooting my Hasselblad cameras for 25 years ( among other cameras ) and at the moment my main work camera is X1-D.
I still love film, so I also shoot regularly with my 500CM, 503CW, X-Pan and Flexbody. )

I have been interested in the stitches, because of the resolution it gives me in comparison to the single Raw file.

Considering the replyś Photoshop is a common tool to use for stitching the files together and now to the important question;

What are the best settings to use ??? ( Please see the jpg attached ) ;

Layout
Vignette Removal
Geometric Distortion Correction
Content Aware Fill Transparent Areas

My aim is to achieve natural looking results with as little distortion as possible.
To make a long story short:

The resolution of the camera is not good enough for me and I need to grow the resolution by stitching several images together.

Thank you very much for all the replies ! I appreciate it


ANTTI VIITALA PHOTOGRAPHY

http://www.anttiviitala.com

Bird On A Wire

BIRD ON A WIRE creative professionals represent the creme of Photographers, Stylists, Food Stylists, Hair & Make-up and Directors working in Cape Town and South Africa today.

www.birdonawire.co.za

[email protected]
Mobile Africa +27767131248
Mobile Europe +358500500087

Skype; peikkokki

 

[zocalo]

This is why I use Lightroom, I have the same adjustment control over the stitched image as I have over any other RAW file.

That's part of it for me, the other being that I've used Photoshop since v6 (that's straight v6, not CS6), so I'm rather familiar with where things are and the keyboard shortcuts! I'm pretty sure some of the other leading software will be using a similar approach, the lower end stuff perhaps not so much though; the test is to play with the exposure slider and see how many stops you can push it before your highlights or shadows are toast.

The main thing for me is that CameraRaw definitely retains the full tonal range of the raw files after it has stitched them which is a major plus as you have much more latitude to make general adjustments to the stitched image before you even start finetuning. Generally, I'll try and have the overall look and feel of the image (curves, tone, and contrast) pretty much finalised before I even bring it into Photoshop.

Probably worth pointing out that you can even do all this with HDR panos if you wanted (it takes a LOT of memory to stitch and edit them though!), then bring the resulting image into Photoshop with either all the data still intact as a 16/24/32bit image or it cut back to 8bit depending on what you want to do. Be realistic though; more bits means more memory and more processing time - 16bits is generally more than enough unless you have a *really* large DR range, so that's what I use as a default. I have done a few 24bit HDRs with my DSLR - not found a need for 32bit ones yet though.

 

[new2mavic]

This is why I use Lightroom, I have the same adjustment control over the stitched image as I have over any other RAW file.

A stupid question : what adjustments can be done on RAW files but not JPG files ?

 

[peikko]

All adjustments can ( and should ) be done on RAW files.
The difference is, that the results are always better, since there is more substance/bit depth to start out with.
JPG is a compressed format.

Hope it helps.

 

[Meta4]

A stupid question : what adjustments can be done on RAW files but not JPG files ?

It's not a stupid question, but it's one that few ask.
Forum wisdom would have you believing that you can't edit jpg files well or that serious photographers won't shoot anything but raw.
But the jpg files from DJI's 1" sensors are better than they would have you believe and they edit quite well.

 

[peikko]

Coming from a DJI/Hasselblad source of course they're going to make such a claim it's what makes the Hasselblad branding successful just as numerous other companies like Leica and Zeiss have found that they can make money on their name with products that have nothing to do with them. The easiest counterpoint to demonstrate that Hasselblad have nothing more than branding on the M2P is to look at the Phantom 4 Pro which despite being very similar to the M2P, has no Hasselblad branding. Beyond that Hasselblad do not have anything to do with cameras smaller than medium format which are about as different as you can get from the 1in sensor in the M2P, most of the smaller sensor cameras they've sold are hideously rebranded Sony's.

The claim it's the 'image processing' is another favourite among the branding companies especially Leica on the rebranded Panasonics because it's not so easy to disprove. I don't believe for a moment Hasselblad had anything to do with it and if they did it's admitting they're not very good at because the processing on the M2P is extremely poor and a long way behind other 1in cameras. The lens is also poor but to be fair that is compromised by the size.

I realise those seem odd criticisms given I am a fan of the M2P but that's for its sensor which is where the camera gets its advantages from and that is most definitely Sony. I find these rebrandings irritating especially since they're usually specialist, expensive camera companies that have nothing to do with even the technology their name has been slapped on, the Hasseblad Sony RX100 and e-mount cameras are a good example of how nothing was done apart from some garish casing (at least some of the Leicasonics look ok) although my favourite is an old Nokia phone with supposedly a Zeiss lens which was a single piece of plastic.

Really interesting read here;

Drone diaries: the 2018 DJI Mavic 2 Pro review

I’ve been flying the Mavic 2 Pro (Hasselblad version, of course) for nearly two months now – both for color/tonality tuning and flight testing. Yesterday, DJI announced two versions in …

blog.mingthein.com

And here;

Last year DJI took a minority stake in Hasselblad, the iconic Swedish camera company. The companies also announced a partnership to work together on high-end camera drones that would combine DJI’s drone aerial technology with Hasselblad’s cameras.

Now Luminous Landscape has reported, and multiple industry insiders have told TechCrunch, that DJI has acquired Hasselblad, not outright, but taking a majority stake in the camera company. The deal is a sign of the times.

Hasselblad, which was founded in 1941, was once known for making the most advanced cameras on the market. Their cameras were even used by NASA throughout the 60s, meaning theirs was the technology used to create those iconic moon photographs from the Apollo missions. DJI is the privately held, venture-backed leader in a burgeoning new hardware segment, consumer and commercial drones.

While Hasselblad’s cameras are known as some of the best on the market, they are prohibitively expensive running anywhere from a few thousand dollars to more than $40,000 for a single SLR body. Questions are now swirling about how DJI will use, and possibly even manufacture, Hasselblad’s cameras.

BR,


A.Viitala

 

[zocalo]

A stupid question : what adjustments can be done on RAW files but not JPG files ?

To all intents and purposes, none (not strictly true, but not far off).

The main advantages are that raw files typically have 12bits or more of data available per colour, per pixel, whereas JPEG only has 8bits, which gives you more latitude in your edits - most clearly noticeable on exposure adjustments. If you accidentally underexpose or overexpose a shot by more than a couple of stops, you have a much better chance of recovering a useable image with a raw file than JPEG without either blowing highlights or crushing shadow detail. Raw files also give you more range to play with curves and adjust the overall tone of the image, e.g. enhancing or supressing the midtones to provide a higher or lower key image, than JPEG. Another big plus is that raw files also tend to allow a fair amount of sharpening during conversion, which can then be supplemented by local and/or overall image sharpening during normal processing, without the halos that are typical of over sharpening.

JPEGs also throw data away since they are are lossy compression format, which is a common source of confusion. For most source images this won't be a problem; you take the source image, edit it, then save it out again - done; there's a small amount of additional image quality degradation here, but nothing that you are likely to notice without pixel peeping. The problem comes if you repeatedly load, edit, and save the same image as each edit/save cycle will result in more data being discarded, which after several iterations will result in distinctive blocky artifacts in the image. This can be avoided if you save intermediate files to a lossless format such as TIFF, PSD or some versions of PNG, however.

Ultimately, its a choice. JPEG files are smaller, need less CPU and memory (and therefore time) to process, are easier to work with, and assuming a good source file will be fine for most uses, especially lower resolution posts to online platforms. Typically, professional sport shooters looking to get images online or to news media ASAP will shoot JPEG. Raw files are larger and need more CPU/memory, but if you are prepared to put the time and effort in will in many cases deliver a much superior final image, both online and (more critically) for print. Typically, landscape or portrait pros looking to produce prints for albums or galleries will shoot raw.

 

[Meta4]

Really interesting read here;

It's interesting .. which is why I already put that in post #6.

 

[Deleted member 114292]

It's a lot more than just the lens, as you can read here: Drone diaries: the 2018 DJI Mavic 2 Pro review
btw DJI owns Hasselblad

It’s the JPEG engine if you’re using a RAW it doesn’t come in to play at all.
Really nothing special about the loans. You can only do so much with size and weight restrictions.

 

[Made2Phly]

To get the best possible professional result, when creating a stitch out of the Mavic 2 Pro Hasselblad camera.

Mavic 2 Pro creates a jpg automatically, but I would like to make the best use of the Hasselblad camera by using the RAW files.
I usually shoot with the mode, where the final stitch is put together out of nine shots.

What are your preferences and workflow. Are you doing it in Photoshop, Lightroom or with some other software ?

Still images it is obviously what I am talking about...

PTGUI is designed for pano stitching and only pano stitching. It works with RAW files. It is crazy expensive: $152. The trial version is full featured but adds watermarks. It is a pretty amazing program