What is the best way to use PTGui while stacking multiple aspects?

[JF Ménard]

I am seeking for advices on the best way to use PTGui when combining many non-uniform photos.

In real life situations, when I find a good photographic spot, I may combine any of the following aspects (with the associated challenges):

1. I take an ultra wide angle shot to find a good composition (baseline).

2. I take a multiple narrower shots to form a panorama (orientation changes).

3. I use my camera high-resolution/pixel-shift mode for parts that are not moving (resolution changes).

4. I alter my exposure of brighter/darker areas to capture the full dynamic range (exposure changes and final tone mapping).

5. I use an ND filter with long exposure for moving water and clouds (missing exposure shift info and color cast).

6. I take extra normal pictures at a fast shutter speed to capture various positions of moving subjects that evolves over time, such as people or animals, in order to pick the best one later (time changes).

7. I use focus bracketing for close foreground to manage depth of field (focus changes).

So once I have captured everything that I want, I need to combine everything back to recreate my original vision.

I would expect PTGui to handle most of these aspects, except for the last one (focus bracketing) where I use Helicon Focus. So I usually start with focus stacking and then I try to open all remaining photos in PTGui.

However I have been struggling for more than 6 hours trying to get good results combining #4, #5 and #6 with PTGui.   Here are the specific challenges I have encountered:

- For #5, I learned how to trick the ISO for the ND stops. However I am not sure how to best deal with the color cast of the filter, so I tried pre-processing the file and adjusting the white balance and tint manually before importing it in PTGui.

- For #6, I import all time variations in PTGui to have them aligned in the global panorama.  However, I will need to do some precise masking in Photoshop for the final composite.  So I am not sure how to best export these layers while maintaining a uniform color and exposure.  

- For #4, PTGui deals pretty well with the various exposures and can apply exposure compensation.  However it looks like the final HDR tone mapping needs to be done after the final composite in photoshop (#6). Moreover, I may want to keep 2 or 3 composite versions (with different people, no people), but still have the same final tonemapped look for each composite.

Has anyone encountered the same issues?  How do you use PTGui for such cases?

It seems like my dream workflow would be:

1) Focus stack in Helicon (unless PTGui could do that in the future)

2) Use PTGui for alignment, exposure compensation, color compensation, and blending of each layer exported separately

3) Open all layers in Photoshop, where a default mask is applied (PTGui seams), but in a way that I can change the masking/layers and still keep a uniform color.

Thanks,

[PTGui Support]

The problem might be #5:

If you use an ND filter, the EXIF data will no longer reflect the actual
exposure. You can correct for this by adjusting the ISO column in the
Image Parameters tab.

For example if you have a 5 stop ND filter and camera ISO was 100,
change the ISO to 100 / (2^5) = 3.125

If you output Individual HDR Layers, the layers should have the same
brightness. This is also what is fed to the blender.

Joost

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