The Perfect Panorama. Next time, bring back something worth framing.

Transcription

1 E T U L O S B THE A TM P E T S Y B P STE GUIDE TO My friends keep asking me where I bought my fabulous new eight foot photo mural. They can t believe it when I tell them I created it myself. Thanks to your easy to follow step-by-step instructions, my friends think I m a pro! The Perfect Panorama Next time, bring back something worth framing. Denis K night erfectpan o rama.com a m ra on o n iti Pa Ed ft 6 o r S rc ake A M

2 The Absolute Step-by-Step Guide to The Perfect Panorama Copyright by Denis Knight All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. Website: info@theperfectpanorama.com This edition released: August 0

3 Contents Chapter Introduction... What is a Panorama?...4 Types of Panorama...5 What do you Need to Create a Panorama?...7 How to Use This Book...9 How to Get Help...9 Photo Shooting Tips...0 How to Level Your Tripod...4 Chapter Software Setup...5 Download ArcSoft Panorama Maker...6 Install ArcSoft Panorama Maker...7 Chapter Your First Panorama...9 Start Panorama Maker...0 Select your Photos... Stitch and Check your Results... Save your Panorama... Chapter 4 Manual Stitching...4 Select and Arrange your Photos...5 Stitch and Check your Results...6 Adjust the Stitch Points...7 Check the Results...0 Adjust the Blending Path... Straighten the Image... Crop and Save the Image... Add a Frame...4 Print your Panorama...5 Chapter 5 Tiled Panorama...6 About Tiled Panoramas... 7 Select Your Photos... 8 Arrange Your Photos in the Tile Grid... 9 Check Your Results Manual Adjustments for Tiled Panoramas... 4 Chapter 6 60 Panorama...4 File Formats for 60 Panoramas Select your Photos Arrange the Photos and Stitch Check your Results Adjust the Brightness and Contrast Save as a JPEG Image Save as a QuickTime Movie Open the QuickTime Movie... 5 Chapter 7 Indoor Panoramas...5 Guest Expert Len Goldman Pro Equipment for Indoor Panoramas Expert Advice on Indoor Panoramas... 57

4 Chapter 8 Autopano Pro...6 Download Autopano Pro...6 Install Autopano Pro...64 Start Autopano Pro...66 Detect Panoramas in a Folder...67 Edit Panorama and Choose Projection Mode...68 Check the Results...69 Adjust the Color Correction...70 Crop the Panorama...7 Render the Panorama...7 Chapter 9 Publish on YouVR...7 Resize your JPEG Panorama for YouVR...74 Sign up for YouVR...75 Enter your Basic Tour Details...76 Specify your City...77 Locate your Tour on the Map...78 Add a Hotspot...80 Attach your Panorama...8 Enter Hotspot Details and Upload...8 View your Tour...8 Chapter 0 Troubleshooting...84 Problem # Vertical Banding...85 Problem # Vignetting...87 Problem # Ghosting...88 Problem #4 Stitching Errors...90 Problem #5 Color Shifts...9 Problem #6 Curved Horizons...9

5 Chapter Introduction

6 What is a Panorama? How often have you come home from your vacation with dozens or even hundreds of photos, only to feel disappointed that somehow your snapshots never seem to capture the grandeur of the sights you ve seen? I know I have too many times! Now, why is that? I have a pretty good camera, and I know how to use it. My photos aren t too light or too dark, they re not blurry or poorly composed or out of focus. There s just something missing. But what? Well, imagine you re standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. You gaze out, and your eyes take in a gorgeous panoramic vista up to a full 60 wide. Now imagine holding up your camera and looking through the viewfinder to capture that beautiful scene. Suddenly your grand 60 vista is cut down to a stingy 40 if you have a normal lens or maybe up to 60 with a wide angle lens. No wonder then, when you get home and look at your photos, your reaction is, Oh rather than, Wow! Your camera can only capture one third or less of the majestic spectacle your eyes can see. But there is a solution. You can come home from your next vacation with some fantastic ultra wide angle photographs. The solution: panoramic photography. The aim of panoramic photography is to create images that match or exceed the field of view of the human eye. With panoramic photography, you can create photographs showing everything that you saw (or even more!) Panoramic photographs can be created in a number of ways. One way is to take an ordinary frame of film and crop off the top and bottom to make it appear wider. This gives you a frame with a wider aspect ratio, but the angle of view is still no more than around 60, depending on the lens. Another way is to use a panoramic camera with a rotating lens, which is specially designed to expose a picture onto a long strip of film. The modern digital equivalent uses a rotating lens and a linear CCD array to capture extremely high resolution images with a full 60 field of view. But these cameras are highly specialized and very expensive. There s another way to create great panoramas with a field of view up to a full 60 using an ordinary camera and a simple computer software package. This is the method we ll be exploring in this book. It s done by shooting a series of overlapping frames using a regular camera, then loading the images into a computer and using a software package to stitch them together. The stitching process uses special mathematical formulas to stretch and bend the original images to compensate for the distortion caused by the lens, and then seamlessly join them up into a single image. 4

7 Types of Panorama This section describes some of the more common types of panoramas that you can create. Horizontal Panorama This is the most common type of panorama, where a horizontal series of frames are joined together, like this: 60 (Cylindrical) Panorama Another variation of the horizontal panorama. In this one, you extend your series of frames around a full circle. The software can stitch it into a special cylindrical image which can be viewed on a computer. 5 A variation on the horizontal panorama is where you join a horizontal series of vertical frames (shot holding the camera on its side). You need to shoot more frames to cover the same horizontal field of view, but you get a 50% wider vertical view. Like this: Vertical Panorama You can also stitch together a vertical series of frames to capture a very tall subject, like a skyscraper:

8 Types of Panorama continued 6 Tiled panorama Some software packages let you stitch together a grid of photos into a great big ultra-high resolution super-image, like this: The software we re using in this book lets you create a tiled panorama up to 4 images wide by 4 images tall.

9 What do you Need to Create a Panorama? 7 So what do you need to create your own panoramic images? Camera First, you need a camera. You can use just about any ordinary digital or film camera. Of course, the better quality your camera, the better quality your photos will be, and hence the better the quality of your finished panorama. But you don t need a fancy expensive camera to successfully make your own panoramas. If you have a digital camera, you ll find it easier to get your photos into the computer. Tripod (Optional) I do own a very nice tripod, but I ve never taken it on vacation. It s just too heavy and awkward to lug around. All my vacation panoramas have been shot hand-held. So you certainly don t need a tripod to get good results. But... there have been plenty of times when I wished I had one! So I do recommend you use one if you can. For professional quality work, you can buy a special panoramic head for your tripod, which is designed to rotate your camera around the nodal point of the lens, which reduces the amount of parallax error in your photos. However for vacation photography and most other outdoor work, you don't need one of these to get excellent results. Scanner (Optional) If you have a film camera, you ll need to first scan your prints, negatives or slides to convert them into computer files. You can do this yourself using a scanner, or you can arrange for your local photo lab to do it for you. Most labs can scan your photos onto a CD-ROM at the same time as they develop and print your film, for a few extra dollars. This is probably the simplest way. Or if you have some old photos that need scanning, you can arrange for your local lab to do it for you. You should try to scan directly from the negatives (or slides) rather than from prints if you can the quality will be higher. Computer You need a computer. Nothing fancy or expensive just about any computer less than 5 years or so old should be fine. The software that we ll be working with in this book will run under Windows 7, Vista or XP on a PC with a Pentium IV or higher processor and at least 5 MB RAM. It also comes in a Macintosh version which will run under OS 0.4 or higher on a PowerPC or Intel Mac with at least 5 MB RAM.

10 8 Software You need a software package to stitch your images together. The package we ll be using in this book is called ArcSoft Panorama Maker. It s cheap, easy to use, and it does a terrific job. It s also available as a trial download that you can download and try out for free. I ll explain how to download and install the software in Chapter Software Setup. Printer (Optional) Naturally, after you ve created your panoramas, you ll probably want to print them out and show them off. Maybe even frame them and hang them on the wall. If you have a photo printer, you can print them out yourself, although you ll be limited to a fairly small size of print. Some printers can print on extra wide panoramic format paper. If you want to make a really large print, you ll need to get it done by a lab.

11 How to Use This Book How to Get Help 9 To help you get the most out of this book, here s what I suggest you do:. Finish reading the Chapter to give you an overview of the basics. If you have any questions about the book, or if you need help with your panoramas, you can contact me by at: help@theperfectpanorama.com. Download the sample images. I ve put all the images from all the tutorials in this book online, and you can download them from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples. Download and install the ArcSoft Panorama Maker software. Chapter tells you how. 4. Work through the tutorials in Chapter onward using the sample images. You ll be able to follow along with each tutorial and see exactly how the software works. 5. Then try with some photos of your own! You don t need anything breathtaking to start with. Try making a panorama of your house.

12 Photo Shooting Tips Follow these easy tips to help create the perfect panorama.. Plan Your Shot Sequence When shooting photos for a panorama, you will be taking from two up to twelve or more photos in a sequence. It s worth doing a dry run while looking through the viewfinder to plan out in advance how you are going to arrange your shots.. Shoot from Left to Right You can shoot your photo sequence in either direction, but if you shoot from left to right, it will be easier to make sense of your photos when you are looking at them on your computer, and it will be easier to get them in the right order in the software.. Overlap the Photos Your photos must overlap in order for the software to stitch them together. You can successfully stitch your photos with an overlap of 0% or less, but 0-50% overlap is recommended. A larger overlap gives you more room for fine tuning your results. In my early attempts at shooting panoramas, this was one of my biggest mistakes. 0 I just didn t allow enough overlap sometimes as little as 5%. And I was shooting with a relatively wide angle 8mm lens. With a wide angle lens, the images are more distorted at the extreme edges of the frame, which makes them harder to stitch together if you only have a small area of overlap. What was worse, the zoom lens on my old SLR suffered from vignetting at wide angles, which meant my photos had noticeable dark patches in the corner. With a small overlap zone, these dark patches show up in the finished panorama. If I had allowed more overlap, they could have been cropped out. Many cameras have a built-in feature that allows you to overlay the LCD display or viewfinder with a grid that divides the frame into three parts horizontally and vertically. This makes working out your overlaps easy. 4. Keep the Camera Horizontal As you rotate your camera, try to keep it as close to horizontal as possible aim the middle of your viewfinder at the horizon line. For some subjects you will be tempted to aim the camera up (for a skyscraper) or down (for a scenic canyon). If you do this your finished panorama will be distorted. For tall (or deep) subjects, think about turning your camera sideways to get a greater vertical angle of view.

13 Photo Shooting Tips continued 5. Use a Tripod if you Can, but... Using a tripod will give you the best results. You can be sure all your photos are in the same plane and it s easier to keep everything lined up (see page 4 for a quick and easy method for leveling your tripod). But...don t be afraid to shoot your panoramas hand-held. I ve taken lots of great panoramas without a tripod. Just make sure you follow the usual rules for steady hand-held shooting. Stand with your feet apart for balance. Hold your camera firmly with two hands, with your left hand underneath with the elbow locked against your body, and your right hand at the side to press the shutter button. If your camera has a viewfinder, use that instead of the LCD screen this will bring your camera up to your face in a much steadier position than holding it at arm s length. Also, when shooting by hand you need to pay extra attention to keeping the camera horizontal and rotating in a single plane. And remember, if you do buy a tripod, make sure you practice using it before you leave home. Standing in the freezing pre-dawn wind on the rim of the Grand Canyon, waiting for the sun to come up and illuminate your once-ina-lifetime panorama opportunity, is not the time to be learning how to attach your camera to your tripod! 6. Lock the Exposure A very common problem that can spoil your panoramas, or at least make them much harder to put together, is variations in exposure that cause visible changes of brightness along the seams where the photos join. To avoid this problem, you should set your camera to a manual exposure mode, if it has one. Pan around the scene you will be photographing and lock the exposure at a setting in the middle of the range. This is extra important with very wide (or 60 ) panoramas, as there can be a big difference in exposure between the shots taken into the sun, and the ones where the sun is behind you. 7. Lock the Focus If your panorama includes objects that are both close and far away, you might want to try switching your camera from auto-focus to manual focus, and using the same focus distance for all your shots. With a lot of digital cameras, you might find that this is impossible or just too difficult to be practical. In that case, don t worry about it I always try to lock the exposure, but I rarely bother locking the focus.

14 Photo Shooting Tips continued 8. Minimize Foreground Detail Try to avoid having objects in your frame that are very close to the camera. You will typically be using a wide angle lens for your panoramas, and very close objects are more distorted by the lens which makes them harder for the software to match up. If you do want to include a close-up subject (like a person) to add interest to a scenic panorama, put them into the first or last frame of the sequence. This can be very effective, and you don t have to worry about stitching problems because they won t be in the overlap zone. 9. Be Aware of Movement Moving objects, such as clouds, waves, and people can cause problems when you come to stitch your photos together. Don t be put off, though you can still shoot great panoramas with some movement. Just be aware of it and try to plan around it. For example, in a scene with slow-moving clouds, try to minimize the delay between your shots. The same applies to people shots. If you can shoot fast enough, hopefully most of the people won t have moved enough to spoil your result. Remember it s movement in the overlap zone between shots that is critical. If you are organizing people for a wide group shot, consider leaving a gap in the middle to simplify the join between the photos. See the section about Ghosting Problems in Chapter 0 for more ideas about how to minimize problems caused by movement. 0. Shoot a Blank Frame First After a busy day out in the field shooting panoramas, you can come back with hundreds of nearly identical shots, and it can be hard to work out where one sequence ends and the next one begins. Here s a quick tip that will help you keep track of your panoramic sequences after you ve transferred them onto your computer. Just shoot one blank frame at the start of each new sequence. If your camera has a lens cap, shoot one frame with the lens cap on. If your camera doesn t have a lens cap you can achieve the same thing by shooting a frame with your hand over the lens (be careful not to touch it). That way, when you re browsing your photos on the computer, you ll have a nice blank frame between each sequence.

15 Photo Shooting Tips continued. Shoot in Portrait Orientation In most cases when you re shooting a single row horizontal or 60º panorama, you ll want to hold your camera in what s called the portrait orientation. This means you turn it sideways so the long edge of the picture is vertical. This will give you about a 50% bigger vertical field of view. See page 5 for a diagram showing the difference between landscape and portrait orientation.. Look for Unexpected Opportunities I hope that the tips in this section will help you to avoid some common problems with your panoramas. But I hope they don t make you think that shooting a panorama has to be a big complicated affair. Some of my favorite panoramas have been quick, spur-of the moment shots that captured a great group scene. Going WIDE with two or three shots can really bring a big group scene to life! Keep your eyes open, and be ready!. The Best Time of Day All landscape photography enthusiasts know that the hours near sunrise and sunset are the golden hours when the light is soft and beautiful. However, if you re shooting a 60 panorama, you ll get better results closer to midday, when the sun is higher overhead. This makes it easier to shoot all the way around with the same exposure setting. 4. Practice, Practice, Practice! The more practice you do before you leave home, the better your chance of coming home with something exceptional. Work your way through the tutorials in this book using the sample images, to familiarize yourself with the software. Then shoot a few sample panoramas in your local area and try putting them together in the software. If you have a digital camera, you can complete an entire panorama, from shooting through to the finished product, in less than half an hour. If you re shooting on film it ll take a bit longer, as you ll have to get your film processed. Have your lab scan your photos at the same time and put them onto a CD for you. 5. Print the Tip Sheet To help you remember my panorama shooting tips, I ve created a wallet sized printable tip sheet. You can download it from: theperfectpanorama.com/tipsheet Print it out and put a copy in your camera bag, so you ll always have it handy.

16 How to Level Your Tripod 4 For those of you shooting with a tripod, here s a quick method to get your tripod level. Highest Leg Once you master this simple trick, you ll be able to level up on just about any terrain in a couple of minutes, with just two adjustments of your tripod. This works for tripods with a built-in level, and also works if you ve bought yourself a cheap builder s level from the hardware store. Here s what to do: 4 Set up your tripod with all three legs fully extended Find the highest leg. Lay your level across the top of the tripod so it s at right angles to the highest leg. Bring the bubble into the middle by lowering one of the other two legs. 4 Lower one of these legs. Highest Leg 5 6 Now turn your level by 90 degrees so it s in line with the highest leg. Bring the bubble into the middle again by lowering the highest leg. 5 6 That s it. Your tripod is now level. You can check by rotating your level all the way around. The bubble should stay in the middle the whole time.

17 Chapter Software Setup 5

18 Download ArcSoft Panorama Maker 6 Follow these steps to download a free trial version of ArcSoft Panorama Maker, which is the software we ll be using in the first part of this book. You can download the trial software from the ArcSoft web site. Direct your web browser to theperfectpanorama.com/software and click on the ArcSoft Panorama Maker link to go to the ArcSoft site. Click Free Download. When prompted to run or save the file, click Save to save the file onto your hard drive.

19 Install ArcSoft Panorama Maker 7 After the software has finished downloading, you re ready to install it on your computer. Locate the file that you just downloaded, and double-click it to start the installation process. When the Welcome page is displayed, click Next. Click Yes to accept the license agreement.

20 Install ArcSoft Panorama Maker continued Follow the prompts, clicking Next at each stage. When you see the message InstallShield Wizard Complete, click Finish. 4 5

21 9 Chapter Your First Panorama Now that you ve downloaded and installed the software, it s time to create your first panorama. Let s start with a simple two frame sequence. Since this is your first panorama, I suggest you follow along using the sample images, which you can download from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples/ These are from a family camping trip in Western Australia. After you ve completed the tutorial using the sample images, have a go at making your own two frame panorama using your own images. Your subject could be anything, but keep it simple for now so you can focus on the basics. You could make a panorama of your house. Just choose your subject and shoot two overlapping photos. Remember to follow the shooting tips from Chapter.

22 Start Panorama Maker 0 Now you re ready to start up the Panorama Maker software and start making your first panorama. Double-click on the Panorama Maker 6 icon on your desktop or you can click Start and then select All Programs / ArcSoft Panorama Maker 6 / Panorama Maker 6. The program will start.

23 Select your Photos If your photos were taken with a digital camera, they ll be tagged with the date and time when they were taken, and the software will try to automatically select the remaining photos in the sequence based on the time they were taken. If they were taken with a film camera and then scanned, you will need to select each photo in the sequence individually. Select the folder containing your photos in the pane on the left. TIP: Sample Images Click on the first photo to select it. The remaining photos in the sequence should be selected automatically. After you have selected all the photos, click Next to start stitching. You can download the sample images used in this chapter from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples/ Download the SampleCamping.zip file and unzip it to get the two photos. 4 Wait for the progress bar to move on to the next stage. 4

24 Stitch and Check your Results After the stitching process finishes, the software will display your panorama. You can use the Preview button to get a closer look and check for any defects. Click Preview to see the panorama in full screen mode. Use the magnifier buttons to zoom in and out. While zoomed in, click and drag the image to move it around. It s a perfect result! Click X to return to the main screen.

25 Save your Panorama After you ve checked your panorama and are happy with it, you should save it on your hard disk to make sure your work isn t lost. Click Save. Give your panorama a name and choose where to save it, then click OK.

26 4 Chapter 4 Manual Stitching In this chapter, you ll learn to manually fix up your panorama if the software doesn t get it quite right, by adjusting the stitch points and the blending path. If you want to follow along with the sample images, you can download them from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples/ The sample photos for this chapter are from my fortieth birthday party. They were shot on the spur of the moment, to capture a great scene just after the party guests finished singing Happy Birthday. They were taken with an automatic exposure and no tripod. Also, the overlap area between the two photos includes some children who moved after the first photo was taken. These conditions present a challenge in successfully stitching the images together, but as you will see, the Panorama Maker software does a great job.

27 Select and Arrange your Photos 5 As in the previous chapter, your first step is to select your photos and arrange them correctly from left to right Select the folder containing your photos. Click to select your photos. Select Stitch as: Horizontal. Click Next. Drag and drop the thumbnails into the right order, if you need to. Click Stitch, then wait for the progress bar to move on to the next stage. 6 4

28 Stitch and Check your Results 6 After the stitching process finishes, the software will display your panorama. Now you can zoom in for a closer look. 4 Click the magnifying glass a couple of times to get closer. Drag the red navigation box to scroll around the picture and check the seam where the photos have been joined for defects. Here s a defect: a ghost image of the chair leg. Also, the brickwork doesn t quite match up. To start fixing up the problems, click Manual. 4

29 Adjust the Stitch Points 7 The aim of this step is to make sure the three stitch points are correctly matched between the two images. The software usually does a good job of automatically choosing the stitch points, but sometimes it can make mistakes. 4 4 Make sure that Align Points is selected. Click inside the overlap zone. Three stitch points are tagged in each image. Click on the : button to zoom in to 00%.

30 Adjust the Stitch Points continued After zooming in, click and drag inside each image to move the images around and get a closer look at each stitch point. Stitch Point is not correctly matched. Let s move it into one of the problem areas we saw before. Drag Point in both the left and right images to a corner in the brickwork near the chair leg. Hopefully this will get rid of the ghost chair leg Auto Match After you ve done your best to move the two stitch points into the same spot on each photo, click the Auto Match button. The software analyzes the area around each point and may shift one slightly to improve the match.

31 Adjust the Stitch Points continued Now let s check Stitch Points and. They seem to be matched OK, but it s best not to have stitch points on people or other moveable objects if you can avoid it. So let s move Point up higher to make sure we get an accurate join on the roof line. Drag Point in both the left and right images to the joint in the guttering. After you ve lined up the two points as well as you can, click Auto Match. The software will line them up exactly. Click Apply, then wait for the progress bar. 0 8 Point Moved 9

32 Check the Results 0 After the software has re-stitched the images using your adjusted stitch points, check the results. Zoom in by sliding the magnification bar. Drag the red navigation box to scroll around the picture and check the seam where the photos have been joined for defects. The ghost chair leg is fixed and the brickwork pattern matches up nicely, but the girl standing behind the chair has lost the side of her foot.

33 Adjust the Blending Path The blending path is a wavy line along which the two photos are joined. The software tries to automatically choose the best path to make the join as seamless as possible. It usually does a good job, but you can make small adjustments to improve the result. Click the Adjust Blend button to see the blend path (the wavy orange line). Zoom in on the area near the girl s foot. Click just to the left of the girl s foot to add a new point to the path. 4 You can keep clicking to add more points, or click Restore to put the path back the way it was. Click Done when you re happy with the result. Blend Path 4

34 Straighten the Image Because the software has to warp and rotate your photos during the stitching process, the finished panorama can often benefit from a bit of straightening. Panorama Maker has a built in tool that makes this easy. Click the Straighten button. The software displays a grid over the image to help you get it straight. Click the Rotate Right button repeatedly to rotate the image in 0. degree steps. When you re happy with the result, click Apply.

35 Crop and Save the Image We re nearly there! Now all we need to do is tidy up the edges of the panorama to create a neat, finished image. Make sure the Crop box is checked. The red rectangle shows the border of the area to be cropped. 4 Adjust each side of the cropping rectangle by dragging it up or down, left or right. When you re happy with the result, click Save. Give your image a name and choose where to save it, then click OK. Automatic Cropping Panorama Maker automatically suggests where to crop in order to lose the smallest amount possible from each edge, but you might want to adjust for a more pleasing result. 4

36 Add a Frame 4 If you want, Panorama Maker can add a decorative frame and title. Then you can print or save the framed image. 4 Click the Frame button. Double-click the Enter Title Here text box. Enter your text and click OK. If you want, add a copyright notice by checking the box and entering your name. 4

37 Print your Panorama 5 If you have a photo quality printer, Panorama Maker can print your panorama for you. 4 Click Print. Select your Printer and Paper Size. Click Print to send your panorama to the printer. Click Back when you ve finished. 4

38 6 Chapter 5 Tiled Panorama In this chapter you ll learn how to put together a tiled panorama, which is a panorama made up of two or more rows of overlapping frames. Tiled panoramas are a great way to put together super high resolution images suitable for turning into extra-large posters or canvas prints. The example panorama in this chapter is made up of two rows of four frames each. These photos of yachts riding at anchor were taken at Matilda Bay on the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia. Before shooting these photos I zoomed in part way to capture the scene at an extra high resolution. If you want to follow along with the sample images, you can download them from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples

39 About Tiled Panoramas More About the Sample Scene The sample we re using in this chapter is a fairly challenging scene for panorama software to stitch together for a couple of reasons. Firstly there is a fair degree of movement in the scene, with ripples moving on the water, clouds moving across the sky, and the masts of the yachts gently rocking back and forth. Secondly, the light changed between shooting the bottom row of images and the top row. When I shot the bottom row, the yachts were in bright sunshine, but before I had the camera set up for the top row, a cloud passed over the sun, putting the boats in the shade. If you look closely at the masts in the top row of images you can see they re darker than in the bottom row. Luckily, though, the software does a great job of stitching the images together as you ll see when you work through the example. Tiled Panoramas with ArcSoft You could take that 4 megapixel image and turn it into a printed photo mural 80 inches wide and 50 inches high (that s 00 cm by 5 cm) with a print quality of 00 ppi (pixels per inch). 7 Or, if you had a 0 megapixel camera, your finished panorama would be over 87 megapixels, and you could print it out at a whopping 4 by 76 inches (90 x 9 cm) at the same print quality. Tiled Panoramas with Other Software OK, that s pretty big. But, if you want to really create some MONSTER images, you should know that other more advanced panorama software packages allow you to create tiled panoramas using hundreds or even thousands of images. You can use these packages to create enormous Gigapixel images. Gigapixel images are a specialized application of panoramic photography, and are not covered in this book. But if you d like to learn more, check out the gigapan.org web site. ArcSoft Panorama Maker can put together tiled panoramas up to 4 images wide by 4 images high. With an ordinary 5 megapixel camera, and overlapping your images by the recommended amount of 0%, you could create a 4 x 4 tiled panorama that s over 4 megapixels in size.

40 Select Your Photos 8 OK, so let s get started creating our tiled panorama. As before, the first step is to select the photos you want to use. Start the software and select your images (see Chapter if you ve forgotten what to do). Select the Tile stitching option. Click Next. Sample Images You can download the sample images used in this chapter from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples/ Download the file called SampleRiver.zip and unzip it to get the eight sample photos.

41 Arrange Your Photos in the Tile Grid 9 After you select your photos, the software reviews them and tries to automatically organize them within its 4 x 4 tile grid. It usually does a good job of this, but you can move the images around the grid if you need to by dragging them with the mouse. To move an image to another spot in the grid, click and drag it with the mouse. To remove an image from the grid, click on the image, then click Remove. When you have all the images in the right positions, click Stitch. TIP Sample Images If you re using the sample images, they should automatically drop into the right spots on the grid. Just click Stitch to put the panorama together.

42 Check Your Results 40 After the software finishes stitching the frames together, your finished panorama appears. Now you can zoom in for a closer look to check your panorama for any problems where the images haven t married up properly. To get a closer look at the results, click Preview. Continued on the next page. Curvature in Tiled Panoramas In the case of our sample images, the software has done a great job of stitching them together, producing a nearly seamless result. The only visible defects are a slightly curved horizon line, along with a tendency for the masts of the yachts to lean in slightly towards the center of the picture. Plus the mast of the closest yacht now appears to be slightly bent. This type of curved distortion is hard to avoid when stitching tiled panoramas because of the need to tilt the camera upward when shooting the upper rows of images. Unfortunately ArcSoft Panorama Maker Pro doesn t have any built in tools to straighten out unwanted curves, but there are other tools you can use to fix this kind of problem. See the Tools to Straighten Curved Horizons section on page 98 to learn more.

43 Check Your Results continued Use the magnifier buttons to zoom in or out one step at a time. Click : to zoom in to full size. Navigate around the panorama by clicking anywhere inside the image and dragging with the mouse. Click X to exit preview mode. 4 5

44 Manual Adjustments for Tiled Panoramas When you re creating a tiled panorama, ArcSoft Panorama Maker doesn t offer the full range of manual adjustments that are available for single row panoramas. You can still manually adjust the stitch points, but only for the overlaps between the images in each row, plus the left-most overlap between each pair of rows. The blend path can t be manually adjusted for tiled panoramas unfortunately, if the software doesn t blend your tiled panorama the way you want it to, there s not much you can do to fix it. Manual Stitching 4 Adjusting the stitching points for tiled panoramas follows the same method you learned for single row panoramas in Chapter 4. If your panorama has stitching errors, you can check and adjust the stitch points for each adjacent pair of images. Click on one of the vertical rectangles to adjust the stitch points between adjacent images in each row. Click on the horizontal rectangle to adjust the stitching between rows. If You Get Stuck If you can t get your tiled pano to stitch using ArcSoft Panorama Maker Pro, remember that all registered readers are entitled to months of free support. Drop me a line at the address in the How to Get Help section on page 9 and I should be able to help you out.

45 4 Chapter 6 60 Panorama In this chapter you ll learn how to create a super-wide panorama that covers a complete circle for a 60 field of view. 60 panoramas aren t usually suitable for framing they re just too wide and skinny unless you have a special application in mind. But they can be very effective when saved as virtual 60 movie, in QuickTime VR or Flash format, or as a normal JPEG file which can be viewed with a special viewer. In these formats, which can be viewed on your computer or via the web, you only see a portion of the image at a time, but you can rotate the field of view in real time. It can be very effective, and really make you feel like you re there. The example images in this chapter are from the gorge country in Cape Range National Park, near Exmouth on the North West Cape region of Western Australia. If you want to follow along with the sample images, you can download them from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples/ These photos were shot in a vertical format (by holding the camera sideways) to increase the vertical field of view. To complete the full circle took 4 frames!

46 File Formats for 60 Panoramas ArcSoft Panorama Maker provides four different file formats for you to choose from when creating a 60 panorama: JPEG, QuickTime VR, Flash, and PTViewer. If you re interested in 60 panoramas, I suggest you try all three formats and see which one you like best. JPEG When you save a 60 panorama in JPEG format, the software creates an image where the details on the right hand edge line up perfectly with those on the left hand edge. To see the panorama in a true 60 format, you need to view it using a special viewer. One way to do this is to upload your file to a virtual tour hosting web site, such as YouVR (see Chapter 9 for more details). The advantage of saving your panorama as a JPEG is that you can easily resize it and make other adjustments, such as sharpening it and adjusting the color and contrast, before you load it into your viewer. QuickTime VR 44 Because you can zoom in and out in a QuickTime VR movie, this format is suitable for high resolution panoramas where you want the viewer to be able to see a lot of closeup detail. QuickTime files tend to be larger than JPEG or Flash files, which can mean slower download times when viewing them over the internet. To view the files, you need to have the QuickTime software installed. Flash This format uses the popular Flash Player plugin to display the panorama. PTViewer When you save your panorama in this format, the software creates a JPEG file containing the panorama, and also creates a file folder containing an HTML page and a Java applet called PTViewer which you can use to display the panorama.

47 Select your Photos 45 Start Panorama Maker as described above, then select the photos for your 60 degree panorama. Select the folder containing your photos in the pane on the left. Click on the first photo to select it. The remaining photos in the sequence should be selected automatically. Click on the 60 button under Stitch As. 4 Click Next. Sample Images You can download the sample images used in this chapter from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples/ Download one of the Sample60 zip files and unzip it to get the eight sample photos. There are two versions of the samples for this chapter to choose from a low resolution and a high resolution version. I suggest you start with the low-res version first, then try out the high-res pictures later if you want. 4

48 Arrange the Photos and Stitch 46 The stitching process is the same for a 60 panorama as for a normal horizontal one. If necessary, arrange your photos from left to right by dragging the thumbnails at the top of the screen. Click Stitch. Wait for the progress bar to move to the next stage. TIP If you re using the sample images, you should find that the software stitches them all perfectly without any manual fixes.

49 Check your Results 47 After the stitching is finished, try a full screen preview. This will allow you to rotate your 60 panorama and see how it looks. Click Preview to open the panorama in full-screen view. Click and drag inside the panorama to scroll from left to right and up and down. Check for visible seems, and make sure the panorama goes all the way around. Click X to return to the main screen.

50 Adjust the Brightness and Contrast 48 The example panorama we ve been working with in this chapter is a bit underexposed and dark looking. We can adjust the brightness and contrast before saving. Click the Brightness / Contrast button. Drag the Brightness slider slowly to the right to increase the brightness, then do the same for the Contrast. When you re happy with the result, click Apply. TIP: Brightness and Contrast Although it s quick and convenient to adjust the brightness and contrast within Panorama Maker, this may not give you the best results if you re planning to print your image. If you re going to print your image, just use Panorama Maker to stitch your panorama together and save it as a JPEG image file. Then if it needs adjustments, you can do these in a graphics tool like ACDSee or Photoshop adjusting the Levels in Photoshop should give you a better result than adjusting Brightness and Contrast in Panorama Maker.

51 Save as a JPEG Image If you re planning to upload your 60º panorama to a virtual tour hosting service such as YouVR, I recommend that you save it as JPEG image at this stage. 4 Click Save. Give your movie a name and choose where to save it. In the File Format box, select JPEG. Click OK. Now see Chapter 9 for details on how to publish it on YouVR. What is YouVR? YouVR is a web site that allows you to create, publish and share your own virtual reality tours for free. You can publish your panoramas on YouVR as JPEG or QuickTime files. For beginners, I recommend the JPEG format, as QuickTime files tend to be larger and therefore slower, and are a bit trickier to deal with. See Chapter 9 for more details. 49 4

52 Save as a QuickTime Movie 50 If you d like to experiment with the QuickTime format, here s how to save your 60 panorama as a QuickTime VR movie. 4 Click Save. Give your movie a name and choose where to save it. In the File Format box, select QuickTime. Click OK. Installing QuickTime In order for this to work, you ll need to have QuickTime installed on your computer. For information about downloading and installing QuickTime, go to: 4

53 Open the QuickTime Movie 5 After you ve saved your panorama as a QuickTime VR movie, you can open it up and have a look. 4 5 Use Windows Explorer to locate your movie file. Double-click to open the file, or right-click and choose Open With / QuickTime Player Application. Depending on the resolution of your movie, the QuickTime player may start in a large window. To see it in a smaller window, go to the View menu and select Half Size, or type Ctrl+0. Click the + or buttons to zoom in or out. Click and drag inside the picture to scroll around your panorama. 4 5

54 5 Chapter 7 Indoor Panoramas Up until now we ve been exploring techniques that you can use to create good quality panoramas using any ordinary camera. These techniques work really well for landscape panoramas and most other outdoor subjects, but they do have their limitations. It s difficult to create good quality 60º indoor panoramas without stepping up to a more professional level of camera equipment and computer software. In fact, creating high quality indoor panoramas for real estate virtual tours is a skilled profession in its own right. Because this specialized area is outside my own area of expertise, I ve invited a guest expert to give us some advice. His name is Len Goldman, and we ll meet him in the next section of the book. Indoor Panorama Challenges But before we hear from Len, how about a bit of background about indoor panoramas. What s different about them, and why are they harder to shoot and stitch together than ordinary landscapes? Well, there are two main factors that make life more challenging for indoor panoramic photographers: lighting and parallax error. Let s take a quick look at each of these. Lighting Lighting is one critical factor that makes shooting indoor panoramas much more difficult than ordinary outdoor panoramas. Firstly, there s usually a lot less light indoors, which means slower shutter speeds, so a tripod becomes essential. Also, when shooting indoors you ll often be confronted by very high contrast situations for example, bright sunshine streaming in through a window on one side of the room, and deep shadows on the other side. The contrast is so high, our normal trick of simply locking the exposure to a single setting when shooting just won t work. The bright windows will blow out to pure white, while the dark corners will become a murky black mess.

55 Indoor Panoramas continued Artificial Lighting Of course, you can try to brighten up the room by turning on the lights, but this introduces another variable into the equation: color temperature. Each type of artificial lighting gives its own color cast to the scene: incandescent lights have a yellow cast, while fluorescent lights can make everything look green. You can adjust the white balance of your camera to compensate for the average color temperature of an individual shot, but when you re taking multiple shots to create a panorama, it can be very difficult to blend all the variations without noticeable color shifts. Flash Or you can use a flash to lighten things up. But there are two problems with this. First, the built-in flash on a typical compact camera is very weak and only has a limited range. So objects close to the camera will be brightly lit, while those further back in the room will stay dark. Second, even if you have a more powerful external flash unit that s capable of reaching to the back of the room, the lighting will still be very directional and foreground objects will throw dark shadows. 5 While this can give good results for normal photography, in a 60º panorama situation, the lighting becomes very uneven and difficult for the software to blend. What s even worse, the shadows will shift every time you rotate the camera for the next shot, giving you a potential stitching nightmare. The good news is, there is a way to get good results using a flash if you re ready to step up to a more professional level of equipment. We ll learn more about this from our guest expert in the following pages. Parallax Error Another difficulty which comes into play when shooting indoor panoramas is parallax error. Parallax error means the apparent change in position between near and far objects caused by the rotation of the camera. Here s a quick way to see parallax error for yourself. Stand on one side of a room and look at a doorway on the other side. Now hold your right arm straight out in front of you and raise your index finger. Close your left eye and look through your right eye. Now move your arm so that your finger is lined up with the left side of the doorway. OK, you re ready for the experiment.

56 Indoor Panoramas continued Now, slowly rotate your head a little to the left. Notice that your finger no longer lines up with the left side of the doorway it appears to have moved into the middle of the door. That s parallax error. Your finger hasn t moved, but it looks like it has. Now try it again, but this time, instead of turning your head, just move your eye to look slightly to the left (this is harder than it sounds). You should be able to see, out of the corner of your eye, that your finger is still nicely lined up with the left side of the door. So what s going on here? When you turned your head, your whole eye moved, which is what caused the apparent movement of your finger. But when you just looked to the left without turning your head, your eye rotated in its socket, so there was no movement, and therefore no error. Parallax Error and Panoramas The same applies to your camera. If you hold your camera out at arm s length while shooting a panorama, your whole camera moves between frames, which makes the foreground objects seem to shift against the background. 54 For landscape panoramas, this should be good enough, because you won t usually have many objects close to the camera. Good quality stitching software can compensate for small amounts of parallax error, but the greater the error, the harder it is to get good results That s why, for indoor panoramas, where just about everything in the photo is close to the camera, you need to take things one step further. Nodal Points and Panoramic Heads What you need to do is rotate the camera around the nodal point of the lens, which is the point where the rays of light converge. By rotating the camera around the nodal point, you can eliminate parallax error completely. The best way to do this is to use a special panoramic head which is a device that you attach to a tripod, which is specially designed to rotate the camera around its nodal point. If you re serious about creating high quality indoor panoramas, you re going to need one. If you hold your camera up to your eye and turn your body, the camera still moves, but the effect is less pronounced because the movement is less.

57 Guest Expert Len Goldman 55 OK, I mentioned before that I was going to bring in a guest expert to give us some advice about indoor panoramic photography. Len Goldman is a professional real estate photographer from Canada who specializes in high resolution virtual property tours using 60º panoramas. Len s indoor panoramas are notable for their elegant lighting and for the clean straight horizontal and vertical lines that he s able to achieve. In the rest of this chapter, we re going to hear from Len about his equipment and techniques. Then in the next chapter I ll give you a quick introduction to the main software tool that Len uses, with a step-by-step tutorial using some indoor panoramic sample images kindly provided by Len. Guest Expert Profile Name Len Goldman Occupation Real Estate Photographer Specialization High resolution 60º panoramas Location Southern Ontario, Canada Website customvirtualtours.ca info@customvirtualtours.ca

58 Pro Equipment for Indoor Panoramas 56 The picture on this page shows the camera gear that Len Goldman uses to capture his high resolution indoor panoramas. Nikon D60 digital SLR camera. Nikon 8-55mm VR (Vibration Reduction) lens. Custom made panorama head. 4 5 Manfrotto tripod. Nikon Speedlight SB-600 flash. 6 6 Gary Fong Lightsphere. Len also uses the following computer hardware and software to put his panoramas together: HP Pavilion computer with 4GB RAM and a 00GB hard drive, running Windows Vista. Autopano Pro, Panorama Studio, and ACDSee Pro software packages. The next few pages contain an extract from an interview with Len in which he shares some insights about his equipment and techniques. 4

59 Expert Advice on Indoor Panoramas Now let s get some expert advice from Len. The information in this section comes from an interview I did with Len. In this part of the interview, we discuss the equipment he uses to create his high resolution panoramic virtual tours. Camera Lens What type of lens do you use? Well I use a standard lens on it, which is an 8-55 mm VR, which is a vibration reduction lens. And when you re shooting your virtual tours, do you zoom right out to 8mm? 57 Let s talk a little bit about the equipment you use. You have a Nikon D60 digital SLR camera. What made you choose that particular make and model? Last time I upgraded my camera I looked around at different cameras and different price ranges, and it was a toss up between a Nikon or a Canon. The Nikon D60 gave me the best features for my dollar at the time. I don t expect that the D60 will be my last Nikon. I expect to upgrade again in the future, but for the features and the dollars it was a really good camera. For the work that I do, I was looking for something with about 0 megapixels, and this camera fit the bill. Another really nice feature of the D60 is its Active D- Lighting feature. This is really useful for real estate photography, where you ve got so many different kinds of lights and shadows within a room. The Active D-Lighting feature automatically adjusts the exposure in each area of the shot. Yes I do. That s the only way to do it. Tripod Now, your tripod. You have a Manfrotto tripod. Was there any particular features that you needed in a tripod for this type of work? It was heavy! And actually the first couple of months I used it, I think I built up my muscles dragging it around. When I was learning this business at the beginning, I learned that you need a heavy tripod. That s because when you re shooting in someone s home, a lot of the time the floor might not be that solid it can have a little bit of spring in it. So having a heavy tripod cuts down any vibrations from the floor and keeps the camera nice and solid.

60 Expert Advice continued Panoramic Head So, with the panoramic head. For beginners who might not know what that is, can you tell us a bit about that? Well, the panorama head is attached to your tripod. It has increments as you re going around in a circle, where it will stop so that you can take a series of pictures that you will stitch together to make your panorama. So for example, the head I have stops at increments of 0 degrees, so I m able to take shots to make a complete 60 degree circle. Each camera and each lens has a different nodal point, so it s important to get that right (see note). When I got my panorama head it had the nodal points for about 50 or 60 different cameras already set, so because I had a Nikon D60 I knew exactly where to set it on the head. Now there are other pano heads that you can use that you can adjust so that you re only taking eight pictures, or ten pictures, or six pictures. It really depends what you want to do, and also what kind of lens you re using will determine how many pictures you ll need to take to get your full panorama. 58 And the camera is mounted in the head vertically, so you turn it 90 degrees? Yes, the camera is in what they call the portrait position, which is the up and down position, versus the horizontal or landscape position. That way, when you re taking your shots, you re getting more at the higher and lower end of the frame. Otherwise if you were to shoot the other way, you d be getting a wider picture, but you wouldn t get the height that you need. Background Note: Panoramic Head A panoramic head is a tripod attachment designed to hold your camera in the right position, so that when you turn it to make your panorama, the camera rotates around what s called the nodal point of the lens. Rotating around the nodal point eliminates a problem called parallax error, which can cause problems when you come to stitch your pictures together. The amount of parallax error you get depends on how close your subject is to the camera the closer the subject, the worse the error. So for indoor panoramas, where just about everything in the picture is close to the camera, it s important to have a panoramic head if you want to get good quality results.

61 Expert Advice continued Flash / Lightsphere OK, let s talk about lighting for a minute. You use a Nikon Speedlight SB-600 flash. What s the other special attachment that you use with that? It s called a Lightsphere. It was developed by a gentleman named Gary Fong, who was a wedding photographer for the rich and famous, who retired early and started making gadgets. The Lightsphere is almost like an inverted bowl which attaches to the top of your flash. And as Gary Fong explains it, without the bowl on top, without the Lightsphere, your flash is almost like a flashlight. There s only a very small area where it actually shoots the light. But with the Lightsphere on the top, the flash disperses the light and lights up the whole room, to give you much more even lighting wherever you re shooting. I ve got a portable photography studio, with all the umbrellas and lights and such, but I don t even use it any more, because the quality that I can get using the Lightsphere is as good as I could get with the whole studio. From what I gather there s different ways you can deploy the Lightsphere you can have it aiming straight ahead or aiming up at the ceiling, and it s got a dome that can be on or off. What s the best way you ve found to use the Lightsphere for panoramas? 59 I always have the sphere pointing upwards. Straight up. So if I have my camera on the tripod and it s in portrait mode and the camera s sideways so the hot shoe is on my right, I ll put the flash on and turn the head with the sphere facing straight up. I leave the plastic dome on the top, unless I ve got ceilings over ten feet high, then I ll take it off. Because it does distribute the light much further into higher areas with the dome off. So because you ve got the dome on top, the Lightsphere diffuses the light around in a circle. So if it s pointing straight up, then no matter which direction your camera is pointing, the flash is giving out the same light in all directions, which makes it perfect I guess for panoramas? Well it does. Nothing s ever 00 percent but anybody who s ever looked at our stuff says Your lighting is really really good, how do you do it? And I can only say that the Lightsphere is probably the best $50 I ever spent. Background Note: Gary Fong Lightsphere For more information about the Gary Fong Lightsphere, follow the link from this page on my web site:

62 Expert Advice continued Autopano Pro OK, now if we can talk about software for a minute. What s the name of the software that you use? The main panorama software that I use is called Autopano Pro, and it s from a company out of France, and this particular software will batch upload your pictures to make your panos. For example, let s say I shot 0 panoramas, which is 0 pictures. The software will upload all 0 of those pictures and will detect all 0 of the panos separately and be able to put them together as 0 separate panos without me doing each one manually. That must be quite a time saver for you. Well, it certainly is. In a lot of cases I don t bother using the batch mode because I like to take a look at the pictures separately first. But even if I do one panorama at a time, all I need to do is load the pictures and press the button, and the software detects everything and puts it all together. Autopano Pro is also capable of HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range. That s where you take photos at each point in the circle instead of one. You take one with a normal exposure, one overexposed by let s say two stops, and one underexposed by two. 60 And what the High Dynamic Range feature does, is it blends the three together for the best optimized shot. For example, in case you have trouble getting a shot out the window because it s so much brighter than inside the room. So you can actually take three shots: one that s underexposed, one over-exposed and one right in the middle, and the software will blend it all together to give you a really nice shot showing both the interior of the room, and the view through the window. Panorama Studio And the other piece of software that you use? I use something called Panorama Studio. The one thing about Autopano Pro is, if it stitches well, it really stitches well. You don t see any seams, and it blends everything beautifully. But there is the odd occasion where for whatever reason the panorama doesn t stitch together well in Autopano Pro. When that happens, there are a lot of manual adjustments you can make within Autopano Pro to try and get it right, but they can take a lot of time. So instead, I would load the panorama up in Panorama Studio, which uses a different method of detecting the pictures and stitching them together. And that might work better straight off, or if it needs adjusting it has a different method of manually adjusting the panorama which is easier to use than Autopano Pro

63 Expert Advice continued So Autopano Pro gives the best results for me most of the time, but Panorama Studio is a much easier program, and one that I d recommend for a beginner to use before trying Autopano Pro. And it s much less expensive to start with too. ACDSee Pro And you mentioned before another piece of software that you use for editing the images? There s so many different things you could use, like Photoshop, but for ease of use and a really easy learning curve, I use something called ACDSee Pro. It s so easy to use, and very easy to edit any of the pictures. Much easier than using the others, and the learning curve is like, you have it for an hour or two and you ll be using it OK. That final step of doing the final adjustments in ACDSee, are there any particular tools that you use for that within the software? There s one thing that I really like about the program. If you think about a recording studio, they have all these sliders that go up and down, to adjust the bass and the treble and the mid range. 6 Well, ACDSee has the same kind of sliders for adjusting the photos. There are sliders to make the photo darker, and sliders to make it lighter. In some cases where I m shooting in a long room, the back part of the room comes out kind of dark but the front part of the room is OK. And adjusting the mid range slider in ACDSee allows me to only adjust the dark parts that are in the far part of the room. And I ve not found another program, that s so easy to use, where I can just play with the sliders and adjust the lighting, and bring up the contrast and bring up the details I want without making the picture look pixelated. It also has noise reduction which is easy to use and things like photo repair. The photo repair tool is something I use if I happen to be shooting close to a window, and you can see the reflection of the flash in the window. Using this tool I can get rid of the flash and make it look like the outside part of the window, and you would never know that I did that. And that s another thing when you re doing a panorama you don t want to see yourself in the panorama, and you don t want to see your flash in the panorama either.

64 6 Chapter 8 Autopano Pro In this chapter we re going to learn the basics of Autopano Pro, which is the main software package used by our guest expert on Real Estate Panoramic Photography, Len Goldman of Custom Virtual Tours in Southern Ontario, Canada. Len has also kindly provided the sample photos for this chapter. To see some more examples of Len s work, visit his site at: And to learn a bit more about Len and the equipment and techniques he uses to capture these top quality indoor panoramas for his real estate clients, check out Len s advice in the previous chapter. If you want to follow along with the sample images, you can download them from: theperfectpanorama.com/samples/

65 Download Autopano Pro 6 Follow these steps to download a free trial version of Autopano Pro. Direct your web browser to and click Download. Scroll down to find Autopano Pro. Find the version you want to download (Windows, Mac or Linux), and click the link to start the download. When prompted to run or save the file, click Save, then save the file onto your local hard drive.

66 Install Autopano Pro 64 After the software has finished downloading, you re ready to install it on your computer. Locate the file that you just downloaded, and double-click it to start the installation process. If you see a security warning, click Run. 4 5 When the Welcome page is displayed, click Next. Click to accept the license agreement. Click Next. 4 5

67 Install Autopano Pro continued Follow the prompts, clicking Next at each stage. At the final prompt, click Install. When the installation finishes, click Finish

68 Start Autopano Pro 66 Now you re ready to start up the Autopano Pro software and start making a panorama. Double-click on the Kolor Autopano Pro icon on your desktop or you can click Start and then select All Programs / Kolor Autopano Pro / Kolor Autopano Pro. The program will start. Click OK to acknowledge Trial Version notice.

69 Detect Panoramas in a Folder One of the easiest ways to use Autopano Pro to create a panorama is to load your photos into a folder and then get the software to automatically look for panoramic sequences in the folder. Click the Browse Folder button. TIP: Image Groups Autopano Pro organizes the images in a folder into groups based on the shooting date and time of each image Select the folder containing your photos. Tick the box for Auto Detection. Click OK. The images in each panorama group are shown on the left, and a quick thumbnail of the resulting panorama is shown on the right. 5 4 Sample Images You can download the sample images used in this chapter from: Download the file SampleIndoor.zip and unzip it to get the photos.

70 Edit Panorama and Choose Projection Mode One of many professional-level features available in Autopano Pro is the ability to choose from several different projection modes. 4 Find the small window containing your panorama and click Edit. Click the Projection button. Experiment with the different projection modes to see how they affect the appearance of your panorama. The best mode for the sample panorama is Cylinder. TIP: Projection Modes Autopano Pro has four projection modes Cylinder: Suitable for panoramas with up to 60º horizontal field of view and 90º vertical. Keeps vertical lines straighter. Spherical: Suitable for any field of view up to 60º each way. Mercator: A compromise between the Cylinder and Spherical modes. Planar: Keeps horizontal and vertical lines straight, but field of view should be less than 90º each way. Go to and search for Understanding projecting modes for more information. 68

71 Check the Results 69 After the software has re-rendered the panorama using a cylindrical projection, you can check the results to make sure everything looks OK. Use the scroll bar to scroll the panorama left and right and carefully check the results for any stitching or blending problems. You can zoom in or out on the image using the zoom controls. The sample panorama has stitched together very well, but there is one noticeable blending problem the color balance in one part of the ceiling looks a bit off. Let s try to fix this by adjusting the Color Correction settings.

72 Adjust the Color Correction 70 Now let s try to fix that blending problem. Click the Edit Color Anchor button. Right-click on the circular button in the middle of the section where the ceiling is too bright. Select the Adjust gamma, exposure and color tone option. 4 Click Edit Color Anchor again to hide the color anchor controls. 4 Color Correction Autopano Pro has a sophisticated set of tools for adjusting your panoramas. In this tutorial we ll take a quick look at one of these tools: Color Correction. For more info, search for Color and Brightness at

73 Crop the Panorama 7 Once you re happy with your panorama, it s time to crop it to get rid of the uneven curved edges. Click the Crop button. The software automatically shows the suggested crop area. You can adjust the crop area by dragging the yellow boundaries. When you re ready, click the Apply button (green tick).

74 Render the Panorama 7 Up until now, you ve been working with a small, low-resolution version of your panorama, to speed up the editing process. Once you re happy with the finished look, it s time to render a full size version. 4 Click the Render button (cog wheel). Adjust the Output Size (in this example we re going to set the height to 500 pixels). Adjust the Format options. In this example we re going to output a High Quality JPEG file. Click Render, then wait for the rendering process to finish. 4 TIP: Output Folder By default, Autopano Pro saves your panoramas onto your desktop when it renders them. You can change this by adjusting the Output Folder setting.

75 7 Chapter 9 Publish on YouVR In this chapter you ll learn how to publish your panorama on the internet using the free virtual reality tour site, YouVR. What is YouVR? YouVR is a web site that allows you to create, publish and share your own virtual reality tour featuring photos, panoramas, videos, text, print files and audio. To have a look at what YouVR offers, check it out here: This chapter covers the steps to prepare your JPEG format panorama for publication on YouVR, how to sign up for a free YouVR account, and then how to create your first virtual tour featuring a single panorama. Preparing your Panorama for YouVR Before you can upload your panoramas to YouVR, you need to resize them to fit the YouVR viewer. For best results, you should resize your panoramas to 00 pixels high. If you already know how to do this, go ahead and resize your JPEG format panorama image to 00 pixels high just make sure you preserve the aspect ratio so your image isn t distorted. If you don t know how to resize an image, the next page has a quick lesson on how to do it using FastStone Image Viewer. FastStone Image Viewer FastStone is the image browser software that came as a bonus with this book, and it comes with a nice image resizing facility, as well as other simple image editing tools for sharpening your images, adjusting the color and contrast, and more. To download FastStone, follow the link from this page: There are many tools that you can use to resize an image.

76 Resize your JPEG Panorama for YouVR 74 Here s how to resize an image to 00 pixels high using FastStone Image Viewer. Start FastStone and go to the folder containing your image. Click on the image to select it. Click on the Resize / Resample button (or type Ctrl+R) Type 00 into the Pixels Height box, then click OK. Click the Save button (or type Ctrl+S) then save your resized image with a new name. 5 4

77 Sign up for YouVR 75 Your next step is to sign up for your free YouVR account. Direct your web browser to and click on Create a Free Virtual Tour to go to the signup page. Fill in your details, then click Create Account. After you see the Registration Successful message, check your for a message from YouVR. Click on the confirmation link to go to the login page.

78 Enter your Basic Tour Details 76 When you click on the link in your confirmation , you ll be taken directly to the YouVR login page where you can enter the user name and password you specified during the signup process. You can also log in directly from the YouVR home page. The first time you log in, you ll be taken straight to the first step of setting up your first virtual tour. At the login page, enter your User Name and Password, then click Sign In. Give your tour a name, enter some keywords in the Meta Tags field (see the tip below), and choose your Country. TIP: Meta Tags Use the Meta Tags field to specify some keywords describing your tour, to help visitors find your tour on search engines and within YouVR. Use commas to separate your key words.

79 Specify your City 77 To keep things simple, YouVR doesn t keep a list of all the cities in every country. This means that if your tour is the first one in your city, you ll need to add your city to the database before you can select it on the form. If your city doesn t appear in the drop-down list, click on the Click Here link. Enter the name of your city, click Add City, then click OK. Click Next to continue to the next page.

80 Locate your Tour on the Map 78 Every virtual tour in YouVR is located on a map. You have three choices to add a map in YouVR. In this tutorial you ll learn how to locate your virtual tour using Google Maps. Select a tour category from the list. Click Use Google Maps. A new window opens showing a map of the world. The current location is shown by the crosshairs in the middle of the map. Click on the approximate location of your tour and drag it into the middle of the map.

81 Locate your Tour on the Map continued 79 4 Click on the + button (or drag the slider up) to zoom in to a more detailed map view. 5 As you zoom in, readjust the selected location by dragging inside the map window. 6 Once you have selected the right location, zoom out again to a medium map view (see the Tip below) and click Submit TIP: Zoom out to Submit The Submit button seems to stop working if you are zoomed in too closely. If nothing happens when you click Submit, zoom out a bit further (drag the slider down) and try again.

82 Add a Hotspot 80 With a YouVR free account, you can add up to 8 Hotspots (locations of interest) to each virtual tour map. Each hotspot can display a different panorama (or up to 4 still pictures or one video) Click Add Hotspot. 4 5 Use the + and buttons to zoom in or out. Click Add Hotspot. Move the mouse over the map and click in the required location. Type in a name for your hotspot, then click OK. 4 ; 5

83 Attach your Panorama Now that you ve added a hotspot to your map, you can attach your panorama to the hotspot. Find the Upload Panorama section and click Browse. Select the JPEG file containing your panorama and click Open. Choose whether you are uploading a 60º or 80º panorama (see the tip at the right of this page). TIP: 80º Panoramas You can upload any Horizontal mode panorama as a 80º panorama in YouVR. It doesn t have to be exactly 80º. Just make sure you save it as a JPEG image 00 pixels high. 8 4 Click Next. 4

84 Enter Hotspot Details and Upload 8 Enter a name and description for your Hotspot, and other details if you wish. Click Upload. The YouVR TourBuilder home page is displayed.

85 View your Tour 8 Now that you ve uploaded your first panorama, it s time to find your tour on the YouVR site and see how it looks. Go back to the YouVR home page at and click on the View Recently Added Tours link. Your new tour should appear in the list. Click on the thumbnail image to open the tour. And there s your panorama! Use the left and right arrow buttons to rotate the viewing window.

86 84 Chapter 0 Troubleshooting In this chapter we ll be looking at six common but easily solvable problems that almost all beginning panorama enthusiasts face. In each section, I'll teach you how to spot one of the problems, explain what causes it, and share my simple secrets on how to solve it.

87 Problem # Vertical Banding 85 Vertical Banding Example The first problem we'll be exploring is one that is very commonly encountered by beginning panorama enthusiasts. It s the problem of light and dark vertical bands where the photos have been stitched or joined together. For example, in this panorama you can clearly see the light and dark bands in the sky along the seams (the effect has been exaggerated here to make it easier to see). Example panorama shot with automatic exposure. What Causes Vertical Banding? The cause of this problem is variations in exposure when the photos were taken. The pictures were shot with the camera on automatic exposure mode, so the camera readjusted its aperture and shutter speed for each frame. This means that the same patch of sky looks lighter in one frame and darker in the next. When the images are stitched together, the result is a nasty visible seam. How to Fix Vertical Banding To solve this problem, you need to use the same exposure for each frame. Some digital cameras have a panorama mode, which does this for you automatically. Otherwise, you can put your camera into manual exposure mode and choose an exposure that s in the middle of the range for the whole scene. Here s how to do it if your camera has both Aperture Priority and Manual exposure modes (this is how I do it with my camera).. Set the camera to Aperture Priority mode and choose a suitable aperture. If there s plenty of light and / or you re using a tripod, you want to choose the smallest aperture available (highest f-stop number). In my case, this is f/8. Choosing the smallest aperture will make sure your pictures have the best possible depth of field although you ll need to watch out for slow shutter speeds if you re not using a tripod.. Look through the viewfinder and pan slowly across the scene. The camera readout will show the shutter speed the camera has selected. This will change as you move the camera from left to right, and the field of view gets brighter or darker.

88 Problem # Vertical Banding continued 86. Once you ve worked out the highest and lowest shutter speeds, choose one in the middle of the range and set your camera to Manual exposure mode, with the chosen shutter speed and the aperture you selected in step (e.g. f/8). 4. Now you ve got your aperture and shutter speed locked in, go ahead and shoot the series of photos. This procedure can be a bit tricky the first time, but once you ve done it a few times it ll soon become second nature. Here s how the same panorama looks when shot with the same exposure for each frame: The same panorama, shot with a fixed exposure.

89 Problem # Vignetting Vignetting Example If your panoramas are suffering from Problem, here s what you might see (the effect has been exaggerated here to make it easier to see): Example panorama with vignetting. Notice the curved dark areas at the top and bottom of the picture where the frames have been joined together. The Cause This problem is caused by vignetting which is a problem that some cameras have, where the picture gets noticeably darker in the very corners of the frame. It can be more common if your camera has a very wide angle lens, or a bulky filter mount or lens hood attached.. Zoom in a little bit. Often vignetting occurs on a zoom lens at its widest zoom setting. You might find that zooming in a fraction fixes the problem. 87. Allow plenty of overlap. If you allow plenty of overlap between your frames, you may find that the problem fixes itself. Even if the individual frames are a bit dark in the corners, by allowing a good sized overlap zone, the dark bits will be cropped out and won t even show up. 4. Manually remove the dark areas from the finished panorama. This is the hardest way. Some of my early panoramas, which I shot with a film SLR camera and a 8mm lens, show some nasty vignetting. Unfortunately I didn t know much about panoramas at the time so I didn t allow much overlap. I ve been able to manually retouch a few of my favorites in Photoshop, but it s quite a bit of work. Here s the same panorama with the vignetting removed. This was done manually after the panorama was stitched together, using the Clone Stamp tool in Photoshop. How to Solve Vignetting Here are four different ways to solve vignetting problems:. Get rid of the cause of the vignetting. If the problem is being caused by your lens hood or by a filter, take it off and re-shoot to see if this fixes the problem. Example panorama with vignetting removed in Photoshop.

90 Problem # Ghosting 88 Ghosting Examples Here s a problem that often occurs when the scene you ve captured contains some movement, like people, clouds, or boats on a river. After stitching your panorama you might see some ghosts or transparent double images. In this example, the people who ve moved between shots have ghosts: What Causes Ghosting? The main cause of this problem is movement between frames. In other words, when an object in the overlap zone (the area where two frames overlap) has moved position between shooting one frame and the next. But does this mean you can only successfully create panoramas with no moving objects? Not at all! That s because some panorama software packages are far more prone to ghosting than others. It all depends on the technique the software uses to blend the frames together. Some software simply defines a rectangular blend area and merges the pixels from the two images inside the blend area. This method can cause some extreme ghosting problems. Example with ghosting where people have moved between frames. In another example, the boats on the river have unwelcome ghostly doubles: Other, smarter software calculates a blend path which is like a meandering line where the two images can be joined together with the least possible variations from one side of the line to the other. This is the technique used by ArcSoft Panorama Maker Pro. In most cases you can adjust the blend path to improve the result if the software doesn t quite get it right (see Chapter 4). Example panorama with ghosting caused by moving boats.

91 Problem # Ghosting continued How to Solve Ghosting Problems Firstly, you need to be aware of movement when shooting. Don t be put off, though you can still shoot great panoramas with some movement. Just be aware of it and try to plan around it. 89 Secondly, if you re still getting a lot of ghosting problems, you might want to reconsider your choice of software. Here s the exact same pair of photos stitched together using different software. Check it out: no ghosts! For example, in a scene with slow-moving clouds, try to minimize the delay between your shots. The same applies to people shots. If you can shoot fast enough, hopefully most of the people won t have moved enough to spoil your result. If you re shooting a group scene you can ask your subjects to hold still for a minute or so while you get your shots off. People panorama created using different software. But what if you re shooting in a public place with a lot of people passing by? You can t just ask them all to hold still for a minute! In this case, instead of trying to shoot quickly, try the opposite approach. By carefully watching each group of people passing by, you might be able to time your shots until each group has moved out of your frame. Or, if you re shooting a beach scene with breakers coming in, try to shoot each frame with a wave at about the same spot. Remember it s movement in the overlap zone between frames that is critical. If you re organizing people for a wide group shot, consider leaving a gap in the middle to simplify the join between the photos. Boat panorama created using different software. So don t let ghosting get you down! Just choose the right software and take a few basic precautions when shooting, and your ghosts will be a thing of the past.

92 Problem #4 Stitching Errors Stitching Error Examples Stitching errors are where the panorama software made a mistake in lining up the images when it stitched them together, like in this example: Stitching errors caused by distortion and lack of overlap. Common Causes of Stitching Errors Here are the six most common causes of stitching errors.. Not enough overlap between frames. If you don t allow enough overlap between frames when shooting, your software may not be able to stitch the frames together properly. 90. Parallax Error. We had a look at this in Chapter 7. It s where close objects seem to change position between frames because the camera has changed position, due to not being rotated around the nodal point of the lens. 4. Lack of visible features. To automatically stitch the frames together, the software relies on being able to match up features in each pair of images. If your subject has large areas without many obvious features (like a blank wall or clear blue sky), this can make it hard to stitch. 5. Highly repetitive features. Sometimes, the stitching software can become confused if your images contain a lot of almost identical features repeated throughout the image. An example of this might be an empty football stadium, with row after row of seats forming repetitive patterns across large portions of the image. 6. Bad software. Automatic stitching of images is another area where there are big differences between different software packages. Sadly, some of them just aren't very good at this job.. Distortion. If there s a lot of distortion in the original images, it can make the images much harder for the software to stitch together. Distortion can be caused by a poor quality lens, by using an extra wide angle lens, or by having very close objects in the overlap zone.

93 Problem #4 Stitching Errors continued 9 How to Solve Stitching Errors If you re constantly having trouble with stitching errors, the first thing you must do is to make sure you are allowing plenty of overlap between fames (an overlap of one third is good). Many cameras have a feature that allows you to overlay the viewfinder with a grid that divides the frame into three parts horizontally and vertically. This makes working out your overlaps easy. We covered this in the Manual Stitching tutorial in Chapter 4. If you can master this trick, you ll soon be able to tackle even the most difficult panoramas with ease. Finally, if you ve allowed plenty of overlap and your software is still giving you stitching problems, get rid of it! It s hard enough creating great panoramas without putting up with dud software. Here s the same panorama with the stitching errors fixed through manual stitching: By allowing plenty of overlap, you also reduce problems with distortion. This is because lenses distort the picture more around the very edges of the frame especially wide angle lenses. If your stitching problems are caused by parallax error, you ll need to take more care when shooting to try and rotate your camera around its nodal point. The best way to do this is using a tripod with a panoramic head attachment. But even an ordinary tripod may help, and if you have to shoot hand-held, make sure you follow the rules for hand-held shooting in Chapter. Example panorama fixed by manual stitching. Stitching problems caused by a lack of visible features, or by highly repetitive features, can usually be solved by manually adjusting the stitching points.

94 Problem #5 Color Shifts Color Shift Example Sometimes after stitching your panorama together, you might notice some strange colors in the finished result that weren t there in your original photos. For example, in this panorama you can see a reddish strip of color across the fountain (the effect has been exaggerated here to make it easier to see): 9 Another major cause of this is differences in white balance between frames. If your camera is set to auto white balance you might see some drastic color changes from one frame to the next. This can be more of a problem when shooting indoor panoramas than landscapes, because in an indoor situation you ll often have a variety of light sources (e.g. sunlight coming through a window, and incandescent and fluorescent electric lighting). How to Fix Color Shifts Example panorama showing color shift due to exposure differences. What Causes Color Shifts? This is another problem that can be caused by variations in exposure when shooting (or scanning) your images. When you feed in a series of pictures with different exposures, some software packages will try to adjust the color and brightness of each image to even them out and smooth out the seams avoiding the problem of dark and light banding that we discussed earlier. This can work very well when there are only small differences between frames. But if the changes are too big, you can get some weird colors. Again, like Problem # (Vertical Banding), the solution is to shoot all your frames with the same exposure settings. Set your camera to panorama mode if it has one, or else set it to manual exposure mode. If you re shooting indoors, remember to also lock the white balance setting before you shoot, and you should be all set. Here s the same panorama shot with a locked exposure: Panorama with color shift fixed.

95 Problem #6 Curved Horizons 9 Curved Horizon Example Here s another problem that many photographers experience over and over again when photographing landscape panoramas. After stitching the images together, the horizon looks curved rather than straight: How to Avoid Curved Horizons The best way to solve this problem is to make sure you keep your camera horizontal with the middle of the viewfinder pointing at the horizon line. But what do you do if most of your subject is either above or below the horizon? One clever trick to help keep your horizon straight without losing too much of your scene is to rotate your camera 90 degrees and shoot in a vertical format. This gives you about 50% more vertical coverage, so you can keep the horizon in the middle and still capture what you need. Example panorama with curved horizon. What Causes Curved Horizons? The main cause of this problem is that the camera was not horizontal while shooting. The camera was either angled up (for example, to photograph a mountain range) or down (for example, to photograph a scenic canyon). What you need to remember is: If you tilt the camera up, the horizon will curve down in the middle when you stitch your panorama together, and if you tilt the camera down, the horizon will curve up in the middle. Remember, you can always crop off a bit of the top or bottom of the image after you ve stitched your photos together. Here are a few ways to help keep your camera horizontal:. Use a tripod with a level. Many tripods come with a built in bubble level, which lets you set up an absolutely level base for your camera to rotate on. If you re able to carry a tripod, this is the recommended solution.. If your tripod doesn t have a built in level, you can buy a small, cheap bubble level from your local hardware store and use that to level off your tripod. It takes a bit longer, but it works just as well.

96 Problem #6 Curved Horizons continued 94. If you re shooting hand-held, try to aim the center of your viewfinder at the horizon. Most cameras have a little focusing square or crosshairs in the center of the viewfinder, which makes this job easier. Here s how the same scene looks when shot with the camera horizontal: Panorama with curved horizon fixed by keeping the camera level. Tools to Straighten Curved Horizons So by taking some extra care to keep your camera level when shooting a single row panorama, you should be able to avoid most problems with curved horizons. Is there anything you can do? Luckily there is. There are a number of tools you can use to straighten out unwanted curves in your panoramas after you ve stitched them together. One tool you can use to correct simple problems with curved horizons is the Correct Camera Distortion filter in Adobe Photoshop Elements. Another more sophisticated tool which is specially designed to straighten out curved distortion in panoramas is called Altostorm Rectilinear Panorama. This is a very powerful and flexible tool, but unlike some of its competitors, it s very easy and intuitive to use. For more information about these tools, follow the links from the Software page on my web site: But what about those times when tilting the camera is unavoidable? It might be impossible to capture your whole subject without looking upward or downward. You might be creating a tiled panorama with multiple rows of pictures. Or maybe you just forgot to keep the camera level while shooting that once-in-a-lifetime panorama. And now you ve stitched it together and it would be great if not for those unsightly curves and distortions.