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Easy Panorama - Better than Smart Phone

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
I’ve done complex pano on a couple of occasions in years past, using expensive dedicated software to stitch the shots together. They required a lot of time, from making sure my camera was set Manually, to the process of getting the final image stitched right with mismatches.

Most of my panoramas are not that important to get perfect or worries about ultimate accuracy, and so for recent years I have resorted to my iPhone that I always have with me. Most of the time, I don’t want to go through a process.

I’ve been playing with Olympus SCN modes the last couple of days, and this morning took cam E-M10 w/14-42 kit lens out into street in front of my house - and snapped off a series of 10 images with the camera set to the Panorama mode. The camera does not generate the stitched image, but what I really liked is that once the first image was taken, exposure and focus were locked so that all 10 images were consistent for a better stitch - something I normally have to do manually, or forget about and end up being a nightmare when I tried to stitch together after.


As for software, Olympus recommends stitching in their proprietary software. But I have also being checking other features on my iPad Affinity Photo app. So I downloaded the files from camera wirelessly, into a Folder that I created in Files. Dragged those files into Affinity Photo after creating a New Panorama. Let it go through the process, and what a remarkable job that program did, with few mismatches - even with the complex wires in the sky, and the car driving through from the right side. If there were mismatches, it is unbelievably easy to select the tool that shows an overlay of the different frames with gray mask over top of all but the selected one, and a quick brush stroke allows me to reveal or hide any parts that I want to show or don’t want to. I didn’t spend the time on this one - this is straight with cropping out the white areas.

This Olympus Scene mode with Affinity Photo, are going to be a great tandem for me I can see. I will still be using my iPhone that is always with me for most, but I won’t tend to shy away now when I want a little more control. And of course this method is for simple quick handheld panoramas - not serious high quality ones with proper pano head settings to eliminate distortions and all.


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Robert Watcher

Well-known member
I was able to Export the entire 35MB file directly into my familiar Snapseed app to play with the density adjustments a little (I could easily have done those in Affinity Photo, but wanted to experiment)


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First I had some fun in Affinity Photo, when I went to the Len Correction filter and it applied the corrections for my E-M10. I lens noticed other Distortion algorithms - including mirror


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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Excellent window on the wonderful Olympus and the useful Affinity and Snapseed programs.

Off topic: Back to “Layers/Stacking”. In what way does Affinity differ from PS?

Asher
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Excellent window on the wonderful Olympus and the useful Affinity and Snapseed programs.

Off topic: Back to “Layers/Stacking”. In what way does Affinity differ from PS?

Asher

I don’t know. I just tried the Stacking algorithm in Affinity Photo On my iPad. I think it is designed for other purposes than what I used it for. I’ve never seen the feature in Photoshop. I don’t use Photoshop on my iPad.
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I don’t know. I just tried the Stacking algorithm in Affinity Photo On my iPad. I think it is designed for other purposes that what I used it for. I’ve never seen the feature in Photoshop. I don’t use Photoshop on my iPad.
Perhaps the stacking is designed for increasing depth of field in macro photography!

Asher
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Perhaps the stacking is designed for increasing depth of field in macro photography!

Asher

It looks like Affinity Photo has Focus Merge to accomplish that.

I found it - Google is wonderful —- https://affinityspotlight.com/article/what-is-stacking/


———-

I have had Affinity Photo for some time on both my MacBook and iPad and have not fully utilized it - especially on my iPad. I just haven’t been bothered spending the time to get to know it’s unique interface and functionality. About the only thing I have used it for is Inpainting when I need a object remove. I’ve got that one figured out.

Even not being able to easily find a simple thing like Undo and Redo, made me not consider opening the app. Experimenting with these techniques recently, I had to find out how to do it - it is a two finger tap on the screen to Undo and a three finger tap on the screen to Redo - and if you figure out what icon is Histor (I know now), that can be accomplished there.

One thing I come across from time to time is the need to open a few images in layers in PS so that I can do something like replace heads in family groups. Once they are open in separate layers, I then find the menu item to align them all and then create masks for the layers. It has worked well for me. It looks like creating a New Stack in Photo, will automate that process of alignment for me. The best thing is that I no longer have to go to my laptop to do it.
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
It looks like Affinity Photo has Focus Merge to accomplish that.

I found it - Google is wonderful —- https://affinityspotlight.com/article/what-is-stacking/


———-

I have had Affinity Photo for some time on both my MacBook and iPad and have not fully utilized it - especially on my iPad. I just haven’t been bothered spending the time to get to know it’s unique interface and functionality. About the only thing I have used it for is Inpainting when I need a object remove. I’ve got that one figured out.

Even not being able to easily find a simple thing like Undo and Redo, made me not consider opening the app. Experimenting with these techniques recently, I had to find out how to do it - it is a two finger tap on the screen to Undo and a three finger tap on the screen to Redo - and if you figure out what icon is Histor (I know now), that can be accomplished there.

One thing I come across from time to time is the need to open a few images in layers in PS so that I can do something like replace heads in family groups. Once they are open in separate layers, I then find the menu item to align them all and then create masks for the layers. It has worked well for me. It looks like creating a New Stack in Photo, will automate that process of alignment for me. The best thing is that I no longer have to go to my laptop to do it.
It would be great for you to write a series of very short vignettes on these steps.

Asher
 
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