Panorama Photo

Dear Paul. No offence, but your equipment must be able to produce much better panos. This in particular I like very much, so I look forward to a reload.

You need to describe your workflow, in order to get proper advice. Do you make JPG or RAW photos? Do you downsize the single pictures? Do you sharpen before stitching and/or after, and using what software? What sticher is used? The basic shootingparameters seems okay for a good pano, so looking forward...Greetings Jan.

Hello Jan, here's a breakdown of my workflow: Since April I've been shooting in RAW format only.
1. I download these files using Canon software.
2. Then I import into Adobe Lightroom, sometimes correct exposure, etc.
3. Select photos to be stitched and export in jpg format.
4. I use PTGui (basic) to stitch.
5. Edit photos in Photoshop CS4 (since November), crop and save.
6. Open in Irfan and sharpen and resize to 500 pixels high.
7. Export to storage file.
Any advice for improvement would be most welcome. regards, Paul.

Hello again. Try this:
1. Develop to TIF. Exposure, colourtemp. etc. Slight to moderate sharpening and NO downsizing of the singlepictures.
2. Stitch. Save as TIF.
3. Crop and minor changes of brightness, colours and contrast. Save as TIF.
4. In IrfanView scale to 500 px, sharpen, save as JPG, with reduction in quality 99%-95% to allowed filesize.

LG Jan.

Hi Paul - your workflow looks fine, although I also follow Jan's slightly modified version to work with 16-bit TIFFs. This mainly improves the sky. The present pano shows a very nice scene, it just appears slightly oversharpened. I would suggest not to use any major sharpening in the early steps before scaling. I myself actually do not use any separate sharpening step, but do this with IrfanView on rescaling to 500 Px (using Lanczos algorithm). Good luck with experimenting! Cheers, Martin

Hello Paul, your workflow is a little bit confuse in following:
1. download .. Canon software - download from where? has this software a name?
2. import to LR - where does your import? CR2, JPG or TIF? LR has many presets! It is better you use Canons DPP!
3. select photos - what is it? panorama?
...
Best, you follow the schema of Jan, except "Develop to TIF". This is not necessary. JPG with high quality is enough. 16-bit TIF is completely oversized. But panorama, save as TIF.

Many thanks for all your advice. I will give it a try and experiment more.
Heinz, to clarify your 1,2,3.
1. I download my photos, which I taken in CR2 raw format to the computer hard drive file using EOS Utility software. In the past, I use Canon's DPP software to edit, sort and save to an archive file in jpg format.
2. More recently, I've changed this and done my editing and sorting in LR, I find this easier. From LR, I then export and save all individual photographs in jpg format to another folder ready to use PTGui to stitch together.
3. I select the individual files assemble the panorama photo in PTGui and save the panorama in jpg format.
Best wishes to all, regards, Paul.