Need help in Photoshop CS4

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rob3342421

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Name
Robert
Edit My Images
Yes
Hello

This is my first thread on this forum so hopefully I'll get an answer quick and easily (y)

I have taken a panoramic with my DSLR and I'm using Photoshop CS4 to stitch the images together. I regularly do this using the auto-align and auto-blend tools but the images are not "auto" aligning. The layers don't align in the correct position and it's blatant that the feature cannot connect the dots.

I have roughly aligned the images together but I cant do the same quality of work as the auto-align tool.

So my question to someone Photoshop savvy is this:

"Is there a way to align the images using Photoshop based on user input"

I know I can use other software; a program that came with the camera (Canon EOS 400D) "PhotoStitch" would do what I want but not to the same quality as using Photoshop.

If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated

Plus if anyone wants help creating a panoramic I could create a how to thread, just let me know (I don't want to bother if no one's going to use it)​
 
A few questions, are you shooting manual exposure/white ballance (this helps) and what setting are you using for the pano in photoshop the basic auto or one of the others?
 
How many shots are you trying to auto align? Try doing it with two shots then do it again to add another and so on. If you give it lots to align then it sometimes gets confused.
 
swanseamale47 said:
A few questions, are you shooting manual exposure/white ballance (this helps) and what setting are you using for the pano in photoshop the basic auto or one of the others?
Click to expand...

To be honest I can't remember what settings I used because I took the photos back in March, I've only been able to look at them now though and thought I'd finish the job. And yes, I use the auto, auto setting :p it normally picks up on the setting I need need so I try to not worry myself about it.

I probably would have used the auto landscape setting on the camera if that helps.

Muttley99 said:
How many shots are you trying to auto align? Try doing it with two shots then do it again to add another and so on. If you give it lots to align then it sometimes gets confused.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to do 12 images into 1 panoramic and 3 are just sea! So I can sympasise with Photoshop, I'll quickly try that now.

Okay the images on the very left, and very right don't have a problem aligning, and I've now aligned these images. There's 4 images however that will not Auto-blend these are mostly sea & sky. So it would be nice if there was a way to user align them then a tool finishes the job, or another fix. This is a pretty simple tool that is featured in other software (allowing the user to identify 2+ points, 1 in each image to align the panoramic by) so I'd be surprised if Photoshop didn't have it.
 
You can use this tool to see your settings - http://regex.info/exif.cgi and you can use the transform or free transform tool to manual align layers...
 
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I have tried the transform tool and I have come to the conclusion that I'm rubbish with it

So I need a computer aided tool to align it all. Plus when I tried aligning it all I found that the two parts that would auto align were out slightly because Photoshop did these as if they were 2 individual panoramic images.
So unfortunately I'm back where I started but I think we're moving in the right direction.

On another subject, last night I took a night-time panoramic however because of the fact it's a bunch of lights from a town the auto align tool did not work again.

I know this makes the tool sound bad but the truth is it is a very powerful tool and 8 out of 10 times it works perfectly =]
 
Using the transfor tool you should be able to manipulate the photo in any direction to get them to align.

Try a different method when auto aligning...
 
I'd be guessing and say theres not enough for it to align to with just sea and sky (depending on the sea/sky) have you tried it on a different subject that should be easy for it just to check if theres a problem somewhere?
 
Yeah I've done this with many other panoramic, it normally works fine but this time it didn't. I've decided its a lost cause as I cant use the transfer tool so don't worry too much about it guys thanks for your help though
 
I have experienced this when shooting in auto. This may not be the cause of your problem but it was definitely mine. When you shoot in auto, you are effectively telling your camera to make some decisions on your behalf. One of these decisions is to choose the aperture. The problem here is that if the camera chooses different apertures for sequential shots in a stitch, they will each have a different depth of field. This can cause problems when stitching or blending. I know it's of no use now, but when you take shots for stitching or blending like this you should at the very least use aperture priority, and preferably manual. I hope this is of some use...
 
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