[wiki summary]

Download Hugin Here Download Autostitch Here Autostitch notes: for best results click on Edit, Options and change the following options BEFORE selecting the pictures to stitch: - Set Scale to 100% for final stitching (the resizing algorithm used by autostitch is awful, and so anything besides 100% will result in a slightly blurry pano -- resize it afterward for best results) - Leave Scale at 10% only if you want a fast stitch (nice for previewing) [- Set System Memory to a larger number (assuming you have the memory)] NOTE: I have found that the system memory setting should be left at the default 0.25gb. If this is set larger you are reserving more memory for the system which leaves less for AS. (not as clear as it could be) - Set JPEG Quality to 90% or more (but not 100% or the file will be huge) -Gain Compensation check this box for AS to adjust exposure differences -Image Rotation Be sure to check the correct box if not default orientation otherwise you'll get really weird results IMPORTANT: if you post your pano here, please resize it to no taller than 800 pixels high or it will be too tall to fit on most screens.

[Dayhike Mike]

Hoooooly sh!t, dude. Wow!

[iron]

i'm too lazy to find the other threads with more recent talk of pano stitching programs. however, when i went to use microsoft ICE this evening, i found it had an update. now, it also has something called "autcomplete". so, if you find you have a hole in your collection of photos you shot, it fills it in. pretty cool. i had one photo where the bottom middle was missing. it filled it in just fine.

[BaNosser]

[Ancient Ambler]

Thanks very much, iron, for the info on Microsoft ICE. On one of those very clear days at the end of December 2014, I took a bunch of photos of the Olympics from Seattle's Sunset Hill Park on 34th Ave NW between NW 75 th and 77th Streets, intending to stitch them together into a pano. Operator error in my photo-taking or in my stitching attempts thwarted my efforts to create a pano using a couple of stitching programs. I downloaded the free ICE program yesterday, enabled the "autocomplete" function, and very quickly had an acceptable panorama. While I still need to learn how to adjust exposure either while taking photos for panos or in developing them into a pano to avoid the L to R increased exposure in this pano and to level the horizon and distant shoreline, stitching the photos together with ICE was a breeze compared to using PSE or hugin.

Olympics pano from Seattle's Sunset Hill Park 12-31-2014

[reststep]

Wow!! Great photo AA.

[Bedivere]

On very long panos (where you're taking in a significant arc of the horizon) you really need to shoot on a tripod and be sure the camera is level throughout it's rotation to avoid the curvature you're getting. Exposure is more of a PITA. One school of thought says to use manual exposure and expose all shots at the same settings but again, when taking in a large arc of the horizon you'll end up with some pics somewhat under- or over-exposed and thus significant differences in the coloration of the sky. I've had better luck just setting the camera to aperture priority and letting it take care of the exposure. The pictures throughout end up more evenly lit that way, though still with some differences. Hugin seems to be MUCH better at blending out differences in sky exposures than ICE, though ICE is more tolerant of other problems like terrain features that don't align well due to lens distortion or camera angle shift.

[mike]

ICE for quick and easy. hugin for more detailed control. e.g. straighten horizons, blending

[BaNosser]

[Ancient Ambler]

Thanks for the concise and informative advice, Bedivere and mike. You've inspired me to learn more about what goes into a decent pano so that I will, I hope, avoid some ignorant mistakes shooting and processing panos in the future.

[NacMacFeegle]

Question: are Hugin and ICE better for panoramas than photoshop? I used Hugin a long time ago, and as I remember it was somewhat difficult to use.

[iron]

ICE is drag and drop. takes <1 minute for 20 photos stitched together using a normal laptop.

[Schroder]

I just upgraded my Lightroom to version 6 and they've finally included photostitching and HDR with it.

[iron]

cool. can you do HDR with a single image file, or do you need to start with the 3 over/normal/under exposed images?

[Obi Tony Kenobi]

You need 3 photos under/normal/overexposed. HDR is part of the Merge function which includes the Panorama function. I will say that I sure love the new pano function with Lightroom 6

[iron]

i seem to recall that there was some kind of hack with LR to do an HDR process using a single photo. not true HDR, but close enough.