Looking for advise

some of you know a bit about my midterm museum's assignement.

I'm looking for a advise for improving a shot, or better a stitch in PP:



The stitch is about 100 x 95 degs, taken out of the side - the windows would have created reflections - of the gondola of a big ferry wheel, from 60 meters of height:





Yes, I have been shooting the courtyard at the right of the white buildings.

The position of the cam is ok, as the're aren't many other options, and while stitching 8 images together, I could get that required VFOV to show the courtyard and the surrounding buildings, which are the object of that photo. All shots were made freehand - it stitches together well, though.

But I dislike the importance of the shadows at the left bottom; meanwhile some other hours of the day, with different sun angles, weren't possible. I was glad already to get some minutes on the gondola for myself.

While I have some bracket series, I can' t use them, as they probably wouldn't fit together, due to the slight movements of the gondola in the wind/slightly other cam's position.

So finally, here's my question:

How can I improve these shadows - the exposure of the shown example is perfect for the highlights - it's been even slightly overexposed. I gave shadows/highlight - from the same tiffs, after developing in the RC - a try, but it's only increasing noise.

Michael Fontana said:

I'm looking for a advise for improving a shot, or better a stitch in PP:

How can I improve these shadows - the exposure of the shown example is perfect for the highlights - it's been even slightly overexposed. I gave shadows/highlight - from the same tiffs, after developing in the RC - a try, but it's only increasing noise.

Click to expand...

Hi Michael,

There are many possibilities. The most obvious one is the highlights/shadows filter in PS. Here is my quick and dirty go at it:



Another option is to develop tifs from raw images and using a higher exposure value for the lower left corner images. Then you can stitch.

Or you can create HDR frames from the exposure bracketed images first (use PS, it aligns them perfectly). Then stitch.

Cheers,

Cem,

Re HDR,

The majority of the picture is beautiful, I wouldn't like to see the computer graphic like effect of HDR in such a pristine setting.

As you suggested more exposure in the lower part and then.......Bibble 4. I worte to Colleen about it!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

The majority of the picture is beautiful, I wouldn't like to see the computer graphic like effect of HDR in such a pristine setting.

Click to expand...

No, no, you misunderstood me. I am not talking about HDR to create unrealistic vistas. I am just saying that the frames in the lower left half can be opened up noise free (since Michael mentioned having issues with noise) if one creates a subtle HDR of those frames only. Just to open up the shadows while keeping highlights.

If PS is used to stitch, there are two bonus points:
- the frames are auto aligned, as good as any other specialist software I worked with such as AutoPano Pro, if not better
- PS takes care of the exposure differences in various frames by blending them nicely for the stitch result.

Thanks Asher and Cem

for your replies. It's not a easy case ;-)

even more as I have been correcting the perspective slighty (but not making the vert. lines really vertical) in the stitcher; uncorrected it would look like that, which I didn't liked:



Every attemp to make the shadows in the tiffs brighter, results in a pixeldegredation, no matter, what methode I applied; basically, we' ve three issues:

- 100 degree-pano
- correction of perspective, which reduces pixel integrity a bit further
- noise in the shadows, due to the light conditions - even the frames were quite a bit overexposed, but recovered in the converter.

These 3 issues make it almost impossible to reduces the shadow within tiffs, conclusion: it has to be done on the RAWpipeline.

Michael Fontana said:

...Every attemp to make the shadows in the tiffs brighter, results in a pixeldegredation, no matter, what methode I applied; basically, we' ve three issues:

- 100 degree-pano
- correction of perspective, which reduces pixel integrity a bit further
- noise in the shadows, due to the light conditions - even the frames were quite a bit overexposed, but recovered in the converter.

These 3 issues make it almost impossible to reduces the shadow within tiffs, conclusion: it has to be done on the RAWpipeline.

Click to expand...

Dear Michael,

This is what I have been trying to tell you anyway. You have to convert from raw to tif with the correct exposure, do not touch the generated tifs afterwards. To this end, you can do a HDR on the raw bracketed images.

HTH,

Cheers,

One option would be to create different exposed stitches, and aligning them in PS, as a second layer.

A lot of work, but I don't think the automatic routines will do the job; it's nearly impossible to handheld identical stitches - I did all frames of a stitch in succession - therefore the bracket stitches will vary quite a lot.

Silly me, forgotten to autobracket - but the given time was short...

Edit: Cem, we wrote at the same time...

Michael Fontana said:

So finally, here's my question:

How can I improve these shadows - the exposure of the shown example is perfect for the highlights - it's been even slightly overexposed. I gave shadows/highlight - from the same tiffs, after developing in the RC - a try, but it's only increasing noise.

Click to expand...

Hi Michael,

Not knowing what the Raws contain makes it hard to give a definitive answer, but have you considered TuFuse Pro, or Enfuse? I'd probably use 2 or 3 Raw conversions, noise correcting the pushed shadow version. TuFuse Pro offers a lot of control and a preview, so the workflow becomes better than trial and error. Since you'll be using multiple conversions from single Raws, registration will be pixel perfect for each tile. You can 'Fuse' each tile and then stitch the lot of em.

Bart

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Hi Michael,

Not knowing what the Raws contain makes it hard to give a definitive answer, but have you considered TuFuse Pro, or Enfuse? I'd probably use 2 or 3 Raw conversions, noise correcting the pushed shadow version. TuFuse Pro offers a lot of control and a preview, so the workflow becomes better than trial and error. Since you'll be using multiple conversions from single Raws, registration will be pixel perfect for each tile. You can 'Fuse' each tile and then stitch the lot of em.

Bart

Click to expand...

Bart, the difference of the stitches is quite big; so I'm on the way to get it fixed in PS. Tufuse doen't runs on mac.

Using two stitches with 2 f-stops of difference but similar camera position/direction. A test, done with the stitch-previews was quite positive.

Michael Fontana said:

Tufuse doen't runs on mac.

Click to expand...

I assume it would on an Intel MAC, running Parallels or similar.

Bart

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

I assume it would on an Intel MAC, running Parallels or similar.

Bart

Click to expand...

yep, should be possible, but I'm still on PPC....

so I went the PS-layers-methode. Looks good, I still have to make the final retouches...

okay, here's that mix of these two different exposured stitches, looks better now:



Last weekend, I had been on the ferry whell again, for study purposes, as that shot will be taken in two years again - with the new building/roof. The ferry wheel was running normally, so no special minutes for the photographer. No chance to capture that scene with single shots only, I took the 14-24 with - whithout stitching - in the same tecnical quality, as well as the extended vertical FOV

Here, for better comparison, the first version, again: