getting it right: panoramic

[dantheman]

Hey guys,

I have been trying out panoramic shots lately and put simply, they suck. One thing that is really annoying me is the stiching. I have made a pano head that seems to work quite well, i have it set up to what i belive is the nodal point of my lens, and i make sure that the tripod is leveled properly so that when i rotate it, it is on the same horizontal line. now i use photoshop CS3, the stiching in it is pretty good, how ever i use auto stich and the resultant shape is horible. It is really tall on the sides and skinny in the middle, this seems to be the perspective correction. will cs3 do this for all photo stiches or does this mean that somewhere i am out and it is not capturing the image properly and im not rotating around the nodal point.

How do you stich your images, and do you get results like these?

Thanks
Dan

Edit: I was ment to put this in general help, sorry if its out of place here

[ricktas]

When you go into photomerge in CS3 it should offer you some choices, one is AUTO, which is doing the perspective thing you mention.

Look down the left side of the photo-merge window to select which you want.

However, depending on your camera (MP) and how many shots you took for your pano, remember you are working with a large photo, With my D3 I often end up with a pano created that is around 15,000 pixels wide. So when you end up with the resultant shape, I just use the crop tool to extract the main part of the pano. Still leaving me with one damn big file (pixel width and file size!!).

See the screen capture below, on the left are the tools you need (LAYOUT) to select to change the way the stitch is done.

[dantheman]

Hey rick,
Thanks for moving the thread, Currently i am doing it the way you explained, and am still getting good file sizes. I was just wondering if the unusual shape is a result of the perspective and if everyone else got something similar, and it seems you do.

Thanks for clearing that up,
Dan

[ricktas]

Yeah, I end up with all sorts of weird shapes, but a crop and away I go.

[keith-killer]

As above, plus I often use, reposition only. I sometimes have to try both options to see which is best. Plus I nearly always have to crop. I love panos, and CS3 is awesome.

[matilda]

I was going to create a new thread, but I like how 'have you tired these threads' come up, and thus i found this.

So thanks, i've learnt something new in photoshop :D