Force HDR Mode

[Chris Watts]

Hi,

I realise this is probably a well-covered topic in terms of tutorials etc.. but I am trying to get an HDR merge forced for photos i took without a tripod. The photos are ever so slightly not pixel perfect, slight position adjustments etc. but the exposure is adjusted as it should be and aperture/shutter controlled as per guidance. (i believe.. as camera was in P-mode!)

Is there a way to force PT GUI to process photos as HDR in this scenario? I guess i want it to align then attempt HDR merge?

I can share the photos if desired.. didnt want to bloat the initial message if someone can provide a quick solution..

Thank you in advance! (and thanks for the awesome software, really enjoying it, very easy to use!)

Chris

[PTGui Support]

Hi Chris,

If you took the images with camera bracketing, and you have the same
number of brackets per view, PTGui usually picks this up automatically
and it will ask your whether it's HDR and if it was taken from a tripod.

If not, here's how to set it up manually:

Drop your images onto PTGui
Switch PTGui to Advanced mode
Go to Source Images
Select the images from the first bracketed set
Right click and choose 'Link Selected Images'
Repeat this for each bracketed set

Then go to the Image Parameters tab and uncheck all 'Link' checkboxes.
This ensures that PTGui will attempt to align the images within each
bracketed set.

Since version 12 PTGui can create HDR panoramas taken in automatic
exposure mode (P, Av or Tv on your camera) but using M mode is still the
recommended way.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

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[Chris Watts]

Thanks Joost for the tips/steps.

I have slowly got there, but no matter how many horizontal control points I add, i cant get the horizon to be straight now (See below)

[Erik Krause]

Am 01.03.22 um 14:32 schrieb Chris Watts:

> I have slowly got there, but no matter how many horizontal control points I
> add, i cant get the horizon to be straight now (See below)

Since you took this handheld, I'd assume this is caused by parallax
problems. Try to delete all control points in the foreground and instead
set more on features in a distance. Do that for different positions only
and leave all control points between images with different exposure from
the same position.

If this doesn't work out, try to merge your images before stitching.
There is an outline at
https://wiki.panotools.org/Batch_merge_handheld_images#PTGui

--
Erik Krause

[John Houghton]

Chris,  You might try selecting the option to include horizontal and vertical line points in the first pass of the optimizer (on the Advanced page of the Optimizer tab).  The points will then assist the alignment process of the images with each other.  When this option is not selected (by default), levelling will be achieved only by shifting the entire composite panorama around on the spherical stitching surface.  You can also make use of straight line control points by sprinkling a set of "Line 1" points along the visible horizon.  As Erik says, remove all points on the near foreground features.  If you cannot get a satisfactory stitch, by all means make available for download a single exposure set of images (half size jpegs would be fine).

John

[Chris Watts]

With the talk that is being used here, I am not sure if what I am doing is actually feasible given all expectations from you guys is to have a panorama..  I will include the pictures here, hopefully that can shed some light on what I am doing wrong.. but what I am trying to do, is take my 6 shots of 1 view.. and combine them into a single HDR picture, there's a bit of wobble due to handheld, but the foreground is fine (so wouldnt expect there to be parallax issues..). However, I am very new to this whole experience and workflow having typically shot single frame landscapes previously, I thought i would try something new!

I havent tried deleting the foreground control points yet.. I will do that today, takes some time in between actual day job :D

I cant seemingly upload the pictures here (it just says exceeds the group max after 1 picture.. but i have added them and the project file to google drive so you can take as desired.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12Mwg4DNL3tmEpEPQ9tAFdB849-9Kk5jU?usp=sharing

[John Houghton]

Chris,  It's unlikely that you are going to be able to get a decent HDR image, owing to the parallax issues.  The trick here is to link the images on the Source Images tab (to invoke HDR processing), and unlink them on the Image Parameters tab so that the image positions are unlinked.  But the image alignment is not going to be good enough for you to get a sharp final output.  My project file is attached and if you generate the output, you will see the parallax problems.  The images are aligned on the more distant features.  (I applied masks to confine the control points generation to those areas).  You could possibly output a layered PSD file and use Edit->Warp to deal with the local misalignments in the foreground.  Then do the HDR blend.

John

[John Houghton]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 10:55:15 AM UTC John Houghton wrote:

You could possibly output a layered PSD file and use Edit->Warp to deal with the local misalignments in the foreground

Sorry, I should have referred you to the Edit--Transform->Warp tool in Photoshop.

John 

[Chris Watts]

Damn, that's a shame, really thought it would work in the same way as a panorama (align then hdr merge/flatten).. seems like handheld photos is not the way to go if i try to do this in the future!

Thank you guys so much for your help, really impressed with your support and the software!

[John Houghton]

Chris, I tried applying viewpoint correction to deal with the parallax and had fair success, though inevitably not pin sharp.  Project file attached.

It looks somewhat  darker now that I have added it in here!

John

[Chris Watts]

wow thats really cool, i have so much to learn about this software!!

[Chris Watts]

Thank you for supplying the project file, thats been really useful! I didn't know about the viewpoint correction setting (should it be an option in source images/imageparameters tab too?)

Thank you again!