Panorama Stitching in RAW

[stoogest]

Hi all,

I've had look for some photo stitching software but I can't seem to find one that can process RAW images (rather than converting to TIFF as I hate the massive file sizes).

Does anyone know if there's something out there that can do that?

Cheers!

[Allann]

To my knowledge nothing does. It has to be converted. Even Photoshop, can't do anything with a raw image, it will convert it before editing. Maybe someone else can enlighten us both.

[dalewilde]

nah sorry you'd have to go to tiff or jpeg and such for all the stiching programs i know.

[ricktas]

YEP, You cant stitch RAW files together and end up with a RAW file result.

You don't have to keep the huge TIF file, you can create it, then save it as a PSD if you don't want to save it as a JPG (lossy).

[dbax]

YEP, You cant stitch RAW files together and end up with a RAW file result.

You don't have to keep the huge TIF file, you can create it, then save it as a PSD if you don't want to save it as a JPG (lossy).

yeah thats my understanding as well, most pano creating programs couldn't maintain the many different RAW formats. Ricks tip about a PSD is a good one.

[stoogest]

Rick, do you mean

RAW-->PSD-->Stitch

or

RAW-->TIF-->PSD-->Stitch?

[ricktas]

No, you can stitch straight from RAW, but you cant save the resultant file as RAW.

What software are you using?

[dbax]

No, you can stitch straight from RAW, but you cant save the resultant file as RAW.

What software are you using?

this could get interesting I didn't know you could stitch a RAW files, thought you had to convert first.

[MarkChap]

Using CS3 and Bridge all I do is select the files (Canon Raw) that I want to stich together and then select the Photomerge option from the tools menu in Bridge. An option window opens in CS3 and I generally leave it at auto and hit the Start button.
All the images are opend in Photoshop, which then aligns and blends as it sees fit.

From there you just save the resultant image in whatever format you want, .psd, .tiff, .jpg, what ever takes your fancy at the time

[ricktas]

In CS3/4. Go to File >Automate>Photomerge. Find your raw files and use those. Works fine.

[stoogest]

I have CS3 and I used that method (I think!), however CS3 didn't recognise RAW files as a possible input to the process. I'm at work at the moment so I'll check again when I'm at home.

[ricktas]

I have CS3 and I used that method (I think!), however CS3 didn't recognise RAW files as a possible input to the process. I'm at work at the moment so I'll check again when I'm at home.

Then you need to update to the latest CS3 updates, including Adobe Camera Raw

[stoogest]

Have checked and you are right Rick, RAW (NEF) does work. Thanks for pointing me back to CS3!