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From: M-M on 13 Mar 2010 00:01
In article <6Twmn.318843$7Q1.220789(a)newsfe14.ams2>,
Lobster <davidlobsterpot601(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

> http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/1228/panoramah.jpg


The problem is your wide-angle lens has too much pincushion distortion.

Photoshop Elements does a fine job with photomerge. Use the bottom
choice, "Interactive layout"

--
m-m
http://www.mhmyers.com
From: ransley on 13 Mar 2010 07:55
On Mar 12, 1:47 pm, Lobster <davidlobsterpot...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> I've been playing around with the 'photomerge' function in Photoshop
> Elements, attempting to take a wide-angle-type view of a room.
>
> Not having done this before, I stuck my camera on a tripod, which I then
> levelled as best I could using the built-in spirit leveled) and then
> rotated the camera to 'portrait' mode. The plan was to do three 'pans'
> of the room at high., medium and low level, and then merge the results
> to produce a single photo which could be cropped accordingly.
>
> However, the results are hopeless, as you can see from the results of
> the pan at 'middle' height uploaded below.  Ignoring other issues for
> now, the perspective is all wrong - why is this?  Is it simply due to
> inaccurate leveling of the tripod or am I doing something else wrong?
> If it's a leveling error, it must be so sensitive that I'm not sure how
> to get it accurate enough to generate satisfactory photos.
>
> http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/1228/panoramah.jpg
>
> Thanks for any tips.
>
> David

Look at www.PTGUI.com panorama results. www.photomatrix.com
exposes it properly, both should have free sample tryouts. I never
tried elements but you recieved good tips. Your white balance should
be adjusted a bit cooler , do it when you edit.
From: Neil Harrington on 13 Mar 2010 12:57

"Lobster" <davidlobsterpot601(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:0Pxmn.377994$UQ6.315102(a)newsfe04.ams2...
> Draco wrote:
>> On Mar 12, 2:47 pm, Lobster <davidlobsterpot...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> I've been playing around with the 'photomerge' function in Photoshop
>>> Elements, attempting to take a wide-angle-type view of a room.
>
>>> However, the results are hopeless, as you can see from the results of
>>> the pan at 'middle' height uploaded below. Ignoring other issues for
>>> now, the perspective is all wrong - why is this? Is it simply due to
>>> inaccurate leveling of the tripod or am I doing something else wrong?
>
>> From my point of view, it looks like you didn't swivel on the lens
>> nodel point. This is where the light come to a point in the lens before
>> it "widens" again to cover the "film plane" or digital sensor. It will
>> give a tilt to the image and distort the panorama. Also you should over
>> lap each shot by at the least 1/3 of the frame. This will give you and
>> the
>> program more to work with in aligning the images.
>
> Thanks for the responses. Sounds like the above would fit; especially by
> having rotated the bracket on the camera head through 90 deg to do the
> shots portrait-style, I could have swiveling the camera about 2-3" from
> the nodal point. I suppose taking pictures only a short distance away (the
> room is 3 or 4 yards wide) as opposed to a landscape shot will only
> execerbate that problem.

It is true that rotating the camera around the lens's first nodal point
becomes more important for panoramic shots at closer distances, while it's
not very important at all with distant scenes.

However, this is not your main problem. You cannot take a panoramic shot in
this way and have it fully rectilinear, which is apparently what you are
trying to do. That is, you cannot ROTATE the camera and keep the same
perspective as if you had not rotated it.

You can keep the verticals straight (and parallel if the camera is kept
level), but the horizontals must curve in order to get the whole stitched
scene in without obvious angular breaks; that is, the perspective changes
continuously from one side of the picture to the other. The panoramic photo
Paul Furman linked to above is a very good example of this.

You would probably be much better off using software expressly designed for
making panoramic photos, than trying to do this in Elements. Many if not
most digital cameras come with some sort of panorama software. I use ArcSoft
Panorama Maker which comes with Nikons and it works very well for me.


From: Peter on 13 Mar 2010 18:42
"Neil Harrington" <never(a)home.com> wrote in message
news:9q6dnbPe88SOTwbWnZ2dnUVZ_oOdnZ2d(a)giganews.com...
>
> "Lobster" <davidlobsterpot601(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:0Pxmn.377994$UQ6.315102(a)newsfe04.ams2...
>> Draco wrote:
>>> On Mar 12, 2:47 pm, Lobster <davidlobsterpot...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I've been playing around with the 'photomerge' function in Photoshop
>>>> Elements, attempting to take a wide-angle-type view of a room.
>>
>>>> However, the results are hopeless, as you can see from the results of
>>>> the pan at 'middle' height uploaded below. Ignoring other issues for
>>>> now, the perspective is all wrong - why is this? Is it simply due to
>>>> inaccurate leveling of the tripod or am I doing something else wrong?
>>
>>> From my point of view, it looks like you didn't swivel on the lens
>>> nodel point. This is where the light come to a point in the lens before
>>> it "widens" again to cover the "film plane" or digital sensor. It will
>>> give a tilt to the image and distort the panorama. Also you should over
>>> lap each shot by at the least 1/3 of the frame. This will give you and
>>> the
>>> program more to work with in aligning the images.
>>
>> Thanks for the responses. Sounds like the above would fit; especially by
>> having rotated the bracket on the camera head through 90 deg to do the
>> shots portrait-style, I could have swiveling the camera about 2-3" from
>> the nodal point. I suppose taking pictures only a short distance away
>> (the room is 3 or 4 yards wide) as opposed to a landscape shot will only
>> execerbate that problem.
>
> It is true that rotating the camera around the lens's first nodal point
> becomes more important for panoramic shots at closer distances, while it's
> not very important at all with distant scenes.
>
> However, this is not your main problem. You cannot take a panoramic shot
> in this way and have it fully rectilinear, which is apparently what you
> are trying to do. That is, you cannot ROTATE the camera and keep the same
> perspective as if you had not rotated it.
>
> You can keep the verticals straight (and parallel if the camera is kept
> level), but the horizontals must curve in order to get the whole stitched
> scene in without obvious angular breaks; that is, the perspective changes
> continuously from one side of the picture to the other. The panoramic
> photo Paul Furman linked to above is a very good example of this.
>
> You would probably be much better off using software expressly designed
> for making panoramic photos, than trying to do this in Elements. Many if
> not most digital cameras come with some sort of panorama software. I use
> ArcSoft Panorama Maker which comes with Nikons and it works very well for
> me.
>


I tried the Arcsoft program and it worked fairly well. But, I saw no big
advantage over using the capability built into Photoshop.



--
Peter

From: D.J. on 16 Mar 2010 05:35
On Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:57:35 -0500, "Neil Harrington" <never(a)home.com>
wrote:

>
>"Lobster" <davidlobsterpot601(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:0Pxmn.377994$UQ6.315102(a)newsfe04.ams2...
>> Draco wrote:
>>> On Mar 12, 2:47 pm, Lobster <davidlobsterpot...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I've been playing around with the 'photomerge' function in Photoshop
>>>> Elements, attempting to take a wide-angle-type view of a room.
>>
>>>> However, the results are hopeless, as you can see from the results of
>>>> the pan at 'middle' height uploaded below. Ignoring other issues for
>>>> now, the perspective is all wrong - why is this? Is it simply due to
>>>> inaccurate leveling of the tripod or am I doing something else wrong?
>>
>>> From my point of view, it looks like you didn't swivel on the lens
>>> nodel point. This is where the light come to a point in the lens before
>>> it "widens" again to cover the "film plane" or digital sensor. It will
>>> give a tilt to the image and distort the panorama. Also you should over
>>> lap each shot by at the least 1/3 of the frame. This will give you and
>>> the
>>> program more to work with in aligning the images.
>>
>> Thanks for the responses. Sounds like the above would fit; especially by
>> having rotated the bracket on the camera head through 90 deg to do the
>> shots portrait-style, I could have swiveling the camera about 2-3" from
>> the nodal point. I suppose taking pictures only a short distance away (the
>> room is 3 or 4 yards wide) as opposed to a landscape shot will only
>> execerbate that problem.
>
>It is true that rotating the camera around the lens's first nodal point
>becomes more important for panoramic shots at closer distances, while it's
>not very important at all with distant scenes.
>
>However, this is not your main problem. You cannot take a panoramic shot in
>this way and have it fully rectilinear, which is apparently what you are
>trying to do. That is, you cannot ROTATE the camera and keep the same
>perspective as if you had not rotated it.
>
>You can keep the verticals straight (and parallel if the camera is kept
>level), but the horizontals must curve in order to get the whole stitched
>scene in without obvious angular breaks; that is, the perspective changes
>continuously from one side of the picture to the other.

PTGUI and other good panorama stitcher utilities allow for straightening
these types of problems. So much so that I don't even bother with a tripod
anymore to do panoramas. Not even for nearby wide-angle subjects that
exhibit parallax problems (fixing that with smart-blend plugin). It sounds
like you've not created many panoramas nor used many panorama utilities.
But then, that's expected of 99% of the people that hand out advice in
forums and newsgroups. They know all about it from reading about it but
have never actually done any of it. Armchair experts abound.





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