Exposure Smoothing techniques?

[Nicks Pics]

Hi everyone. Another question from me since I thought you could be helpful I was doing a panorama, in many wrong ways, hand held (forgot tripod ), not manual exposure. So I fiddled around with them for a while in a pano stitcher and it couldn't fit them together, (at least not with my limited ability to use the program), so I put them in GIMP to do it manually and they went together great. The only problem was that while the Panorama program (Hugin) couldn't stitch them properly, but with GIMP I could, Hugin can smooth the exposure (caused by automated change in SS), but I don't know how to. The best I could do is just trying to use typical brightness/contrast adjustments to make my images as close to visually the same as possible, but that method does not seem to be working, since even a very slight change could be noticeable in a blue sky. So, to summarize the question, does anyone know of any techniques to make the images matched in exposure so that it won't be noticeable where the images are joined? Alternative exposure smoothing techniques?

Thanks!

[Rita]

Hi Nick, I don't know if you have something like this or not in your program but anytime that I have done a pano I edit the first shot and then use 'synchronize' in ACR. This applies all of the same adjustments to each image. Then, I open the images in PS and merge them into a pano. Don't know about anyone else but this seems to work well for me.

[Manfred M]

The easiest and best solution for me would be back and do a re-shoot) and don't waste any time trying to manipulate these in post, especially if you have limited skills with the software. I've done panos that I've handheld (and these simply needed a bit more cropping in the final product), but trying to adjust and match frames areas to get the exposures right, that will be an exercise in futility. Any mismatched exposures are going to stand out like a sore thumb.

I don't use either Hugin or Gimp, so can't be of any help there.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks Rita, Manfred.

I had done a hand held pano just a day or two before that worked well in the pano stitcher. I do have LR for synchronizing settings, but if they begin differently adjusting them by the same settings doesn't seem to make them the same. It seems odd that they haven't made another type of program that can smooth exposure by now?

I don't know that it's worth the trip to do a re-shoot! So I suppose I should be happy with not pro quality results.

[Stagecoach]

Nick,

From what you say each shot has been exposed differently so making the assumption that each has sky at the top (or other suitable area) here's an idea you could try;

If your software allows you to put two images on the screen at once place the 'furthest left' image and the 'next right' image on the screen. Adjust the 'next right' image so that the left side matches the right side of the 'furthest left' image wrt exp/brightness.

You can work through each pair like this. It may be that you could also do the 'equalising' of each pair using actual RGB values of an area.

[Nicks Pics]

Grahame, thanks for your ideas! The RGB values was a great idea. As it turned out I just attempted to adjust the exposure visually but going back to check the RGB values after your suggestion they are pretty similar across the image. That is a good way to check.

I'm sure you could tell where the divisions are better if this were a larger image, but here is the outcome at this point. Lake Michigan in March. Ice and Sand.

PS. is this too long for a panorama? I would like to show some detail in the ice banks, but also the whole width of the scene, maybe just a large display is the best way to go.

[IzzieK]

The image is soft and just right for my taste Alan and though I like doing pano on a tripod, I find it easier to handheld better by just twisting my body while my heels rotate by an inch or two depending on where I overlap the scene that is...+1 to Grahame's advice...I just usually merge mine in photoshop and adjust as I see fit but his advice now makes me think twice...

[Nicks Pics]

The image is soft and just right for my taste Alan and though I like doing pano on a tripod, I find it easier to handheld better by just twisting my body while my heels rotate by an inch or two depending on where I overlap the scene that is...+1 to Grahame's advice...I just usually merge mine in photoshop and adjust as I see fit but his advice now makes me think twice...

I didn't sharpen this so far, it may need a little sharpening when shown at larger size, but thank you for expressing your preference. I usually try a pano in the stitching program to see if it works, or try manually stitching, in this case manually doing it in GIMP worked better, but I'm not experienced enough to know which method has more potential.