Pano stitching - PTGui, Hugin, CS4?

[suzyjazz]

I have a 5 image pano I want to stitch together. Doing it well manually could take the rest of my life. I downloaded Hugin and picked 5 control points from each pair of images (0 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and 3 to 4). The preview window still came out freaky. i don't get it. Anyone have experience with this? See attached image for the weird preview in Hugin and the crude "stitch" of my 5 images for reference.

Is stitching in CS3 or CS4 any easier to use? My original images are handheld but pretty good considering, at least I think. There will be some parallax error as it's a complex scene, but I took the time to try and make good seamless exposure and white balance across the set. I have some overlap on the images.

I'll be making some extra money at work soon, so I thought I could spend a little, whether it's PTGui or CS4 or something else. Right now I'm using Photoshop Elements 5 (which by some miracle is actually working on Vista 64) and have been getting by fine with it for years. That said, I would find some of the CS4 features useful (printer profiles, easier way to make brushes, and stitching!)

I read about AutoPano Pro, but I didn't see a price in American dollars so I gave up on that fast. Unfortunately, since I have Vista 64 I would have to get PTGui Pro which is $225 instead of $125 for Basic. If CS4 does decent stitching I'd rather get that since it has other things I could use.

That's a lot for one thread! Any advice?

[jeffkohn]

In Hugin, try changing the projection to Cylindrical or Spherical and see if that helps.

[jasond]

If you want another option, I've been using Microsoft's free ICE program:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/...roups/ivm/ICE/

It's an exercise in simplicity and it includes an autocrop feature. I still have Hugin installed, but rarely use it now.

[SpeedRacerSlots]

PM sent

[suzyjazz]

Originally Posted by jasond

If you want another option, I've been using Microsoft's free ICE program:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/...roups/ivm/ICE/

It's an exercise in simplicity and it includes an autocrop feature. I still have Hugin installed, but rarely use it now.

I will definitely try it, thanks.

HOLW COW that was amazing! Only bad thing is it makes JPG, not TIFF, but as a MS product, that's what I was expecting. It looks good, though. It just did it magically. Thanks!

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

In Hugin, try changing the projection to Cylindrical or Spherical and see if that helps.

Thanks Jeff -- that helped slightly. Just now I removed all but the first 2 images and I got a much better result. I'm sure there is a way to do 5 at once, but technically I was following the tutorial for only stitching 2 images together. Since in the preview it looked like all my images were stacked, I decided to take a step back and only do 2. I guess now I can try to stitch image 2 to image 0+1. This could take awhile! But at least it doesn't feel like a complete failure now.

I'm going to go try ICE next before I decide I can't stand doing this anymore.

[jeffkohn]

I just took a look at the Hugin website, and realized that it ships without a control-point generator by default. You have to download something like autopano-sift and configure hugin to use it. Then you can press the "Auto" button to have it generate control points automatically.

[suzyjazz]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

I just took a look at the Hugin website, and realized that it ships without a control-point generator by default. You have to download something like autopano-sift and configure hugin to use it. Then you can press the "Auto" button to have it generate control points automatically.

When I clicked on the tutorial for the stacked images (multi-row) I saw it mention the extra sift thing. I guess if you're doing more than 2 images, even if they are not stacked, you need to get the additional tool. That makes sense now. Not sure if that part is free, but I might take a look. Since ICE worked so well I might not need to do anything else, but I'll have to run my eyes over this first image I got first. Thanks!

[venchka]

The auto feature of Hugin only works with JPEGs less than 1600 units on the long side.

That said, I have managed decent stiches of 5 & 7 images. My problem was cropping too tight top & bottom. Hugin is squirrely but it will work with mega-TIFF files from 6x7 negatives. After a fashion. These were done with HUGIN...

http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...ght=smokehouse

[Cerbera LM]

Originally Posted by suzyjazz

I will definitely try it, thanks.

HOLW COW that was amazing! Only bad thing is it makes JPG, not TIFF, but as a MS product, that's what I was expecting. It looks good, though. It just did it magically. Thanks!

Thanks Jeff -- that helped slightly. Just now I removed all but the first 2 images and I got a much better result. I'm sure there is a way to do 5 at once, but technically I was following the tutorial for only stitching 2 images together. Since in the preview it looked like all my images were stacked, I decided to take a step back and only do 2. I guess now I can try to stitch image 2 to image 0+1. This could take awhile! But at least it doesn't feel like a complete failure now.

I'm going to go try ICE next before I decide I can't stand doing this anymore.

This MS freebe works with tiffs, download the photo gallery. It's spliced everything I've thrown at it, including vertical panos. The only bad news is it'll catalog every picture it can find until you disable that "feature".

http://download.live.com/photogallery

[RKEnnis]

The only tool I've ever used to create panos is Photoshop, so I can't compare it with other tools. I do know that creating panoramas in CS4 is really, really easy!

[jasond]

Originally Posted by suzyjazz

I will definitely try it, thanks.

HOLW COW that was amazing! Only bad thing is it makes JPG, not TIFF, but as a MS product, that's what I was expecting. It looks good, though. It just did it magically. Thanks!

Glad it worked for you! It will output in TIFF format as well (8 formats total, I think). Just change the Format in the Export section at the bottom. It's not an 'official' product; it's more of a creation from the research labs. I've not tried the online one in Windows Live that was mentioned.

[jasond]

duplicate

[suzyjazz]

Thanks everyone for the tips. ICE has worked so I'm stopping there for now, but I've made notes of the other tools for the future (and I'm going to try the TIFF option!) When I get the extra money, I'll have to see what I want. I might get CS4 anyway... or just save it up for the home remodeling coming soon.