Panorama - how to force a merge?

[Vincent Lowe]

54 minutes ago, MDM said:

There are a few ways of automating the process so no need to create docs in PS and do it all manually by opening , copying and pasting.

2

 

Yeah but... no but.... the whole point of this thread is that auto blending / photomerge wouldn't work....

[MDM]

It  was primarily intended as a summary of the various ways of doing things perhaps for the benefit of others who might read what you wrote and think that was the only or easiest way of doing things. Also was most relevant to Lightroom users

[tarsierspectral]

4 hours ago, MDM said:

 

Auto blending has been available in PS since CS4 apparently. 

 

There are a few ways of automating the process so no need to create docs in PS and do it all manually by opening , copying and pasting.

 

Lightroom has the most options. There does not seem to be any difference in the final results of the following: 

 

1. Right click  Edit - Merge to Panorama in Photoshop

2. Right click Edit -  Open as Layers in Photoshop and then either use Edit - Auto Blend or File- Automate - Photomerge

 

The output is a layered file which can be flattened. If you need to do further editing, rather than cloning it is better to keep the layers and use the layer masks which will be available when the blending has been completed. This allows totally non-destructive editing. If you don't know how to use Layer Masks, then they are simple (once you know how of course) and well worth investing an hour or two to understand. 

 

3. Right click - Photomerge - this merges the raws in Lightroom, can give different results and it is not possible to use layer masking to edit as the output is a DNG. If it works I think this is the best method as the output is effectivbely a raw file but it doesn't always work well. It ignores modifications to the raws in LR except for the most selected file so is not so great if the lighting is different across the pano.

 

4. Open the raw images, edit as required, save as PSD or Tiff and then use Automate - Photomerge or Edit - Auto Blend. I don't think there is any difference in the result.

 

 

If you don't use Lightroom, you can open files as layers in Photoshop from Lightroom or Bridge or use an Image Processor script if the files are already open to put them in layers. However, as I said already, I don't see any difference in the panorama output between Automate - Photomerge or Edit - Auto Blend. Hiowever, Auto Blend is really useful for focus stacking.

 

1 hour ago, MDM said:

It  was primarily intended as a summary of the various ways of doing things perhaps for the benefit of others who might read what you wrote and think that was the only or easiest way of doing things. Also was most relevant to Lightroom users

But you are using photomerge.  How is this an alternative way to photomerge?   

[MDM]

1 hour ago, tarsierspectral said:

But you are using photomerge.  How is this an alternative way to photomerge?   

 

The point is that Auto Blend and Photomerge in Photoshop do exactly the same thing. There is no difference whatsover that I can determine. I was also outlining the various ways of getting files open in a single layered  file in Photoshop (aside from the manual method of Vincent Lowe) so one could either Auto Blend or Photomerge or even merge manually. There are various ways of doing this from LR, Bridge and even Photoshop itself if the files have been opened manually. 

[Yorkshire Pics]

Not sure if this is relevant , but since I started photography 15 year ago, I always used Photoshop Elements to create my panoramas. The only down side, was that you were restricted to 30000 pixels wide. I have recently discovered Microsoft ICE which is free and it's very quick at creating panoramas. As soon as I got to grips with it, I dug into my archives and pulled out a 30 image panorama I wanted to create. I processed it in Microsoft ICE and had no trouble at all. The resulting file was a 121797x2667 pixels 392mb  TIFF file. I didn't realize though the maximum size of a jpeg anyone can create is 65.535 x 65,535 pixels, so anything bigger can be saved as a TIFF or JPEG XR.