Panorama and HDR photography

[mahfoudhhi]

Good day everyone:
What is the difference between taking Panorama and HDR at the same time in RAW or JPEG format?
Will it be more difficult to post process the RAW than JPEG?
Thank you in advance.

[Manfred M]

Panorama is taking a sequence of connected / overlapping photgraphs at the same expoure and stitching them together in software. This gives the photographer a very high resolution image; much more so than taking a single wide-angle shot and trimming it in post-production.

HDR is taking a series of photographs of the same scene at different exposures and and stitching them together using tone mapping software.

I suppose (assiuming your camera has the functionality) would be to index through a panorama with +2 0 - 2 exposure settings, so long ans you shoot off a tripod and lock it down between shots

The difference in using jpeg or RAW for either of these two techiniques is that a RAW image contains far more data than a jpeg, and offers the photographer a higher degree of control when using either the panorama or HRRI techniques. I have seen successful panorama shots and HDR images come out of jpeg or RAW, although personally, I prefer using RAW.

RAW does take a bit more skill and effort as one has to pre-process (sharpen and bake in the white balance) than jpeg.

I've never done a combination of HDRI and panorama. Getting both sets of images to register together properly seems tricky to do to me.

[shreds]

Basically, these are two different techniques. In a nutshell:

A panorama is either an ultra wide angle photograph of a scene, and can be created. By stitching together a number of consequetive shots utilising special software to create a continuous shot.

HDR involves combining a number of different exposures to create a photograph with a wide tonal range, so that shadows are detailed and highlights are not blown out.

RAW shots record more detail than jpegs so that detail can be subsequently utilised in creating an HDR with a range of exposures. A jpeg is already pre-processed by the camera so the opportunities for brining out more detail are not the same.

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you GrumpyDiver and shreds.
what you said is correct, but sorry, I might not have put it clear enough, I mean taking Panorama with 3 bracketed pictures for each, that's why I think it is very difficult to postprocess especially in RAW.
any idea?

[shreds]

Hafedh,

Ok I get the idea now. Undoubtedly more difficult to do, but not impossible....I just hope you have plenty of time and patience!

I wonder whether focus stacking software might help?

Presumably you have used Photoshop but others might include Helicon Focus, Zerene Stacker, or Combine ZM.

I would be very interested in your results.

[Jeff S]

I've never tried it, but presumably one could make a series of HDR images that overlap a particular subject matter and then stitch the finished HDR images with Photoshop's (or Photomatix or Nik's) panorama software. I would definitely use RAW for versatility and the processing of the HDR images would probably need to use identical settings to make sure that the HDR photographs would match well enough to be stitched together in a panorama.

[dubaiphil]

Well if you have bracketed correctly, then processing from RAW is very quick and easy, as long as you have Lightroom.

Get your RAW conversion set on your first image and then synch with the other images in the set...

[dubaiphil]

Or if you use PTGui then you can process the stitch from multiple RAW exposures in one go. You lose some control though...

[mahfoudhhi]

Thank you very much to everyone who participated in this thread. I appreciate it.
any more ideas please?

[loosecanon]

An interesting thread. The issue is more complex than one thinks. The problem is that there are two steps, and if identical processing is not applied to the first step it will show in the second.
Let us assume you have three images across in the panorama and have bracketed so as to have three exposures of each, and importantly three identical exposures across the panorama. So NINE images in all.
The you have to either combine each exposure of the panorama separately using the same points to merge for each exposure and then HDR the image, or HDR the image with identical settings for each set of images and then merge.

One way to do this is to start in photoshop with the three normal images. Do a merge and you get three images with three masks.
STOP the merge to panorama.
Import the plus and negative exposures into layers and position them exactly to correspond with the equivalent normal layer. (With luck photoshop will do this automatically for you). Copy the corresponding mask to each of the new layers. so you have nine layers in total
Combine into one layer each exposure set of the panorama, and then save each layer as a separate file. so you have a normal exposure, a plus exposure and a negative exposure file.
You can now apply your HDR software to these three images, but beware the image size.

[dubaiphil]

Well I have two different workflows, either:

Blend each shot (with varying exposures) as an HDR file, using the same settings for each, then stitch using PTGui.

or:

Import everything into PTGui, which looks after the blending itself. In which case I have baseic sliders to adjust the final image.

PS can do a good job, but you lack that critical control which a good standalone piece of software can give you, especially when you move upwards towards larger panos.

[Shadowman]

Thank you very much to everyone who participated in this thread. I appreciate it.
any more ideas please?

if you want to practice the technique without having changing light affecting your image you could try it inside. Photograph a well lit interior, shoot your exposures (as many different stops as you prefer) and pan in a 360 movement around the room. Then process as HDR.

[proseak]

Thank you GrumpyDiver and shreds.
what you said is correct, but sorry, I might not have put it clear enough, I mean taking Panorama with 3 bracketed pictures for each, that's why I think it is very difficult to postprocess especially in RAW.
any idea?

Here's one I did some years ago - it's a stitched HDR panorama, of two shots, with 5 RAW exposures for each. I used CS5 "Merge to HDR" for each of the images, then Photomerge in PS to create the pano.

HTH

Peter

[mahfoudhhi]

very nice new ideas. I appreciate it for all of you who participated.
Thank you all.