Exposure bracket results in uncropped edge at zenith hole

[Rob Hunter]

Hi,

I'm using the trial version of PTGui Pro 13.2 on Linux.

I am creating a 360x180 panorama from 30 sets of exposure brackets at -3.0, 0.0 and + 3.0 EV taken by a DJI Mavic Pro 2. Obviously the exposure brackets are not perfectly aligned. I am giving all 90 images to PTGui as DNG. On completion, the top edge (the edge of the hole at the zenith) shows intermittent banding of up to 3 bands. I think it is due to the 3 images in the exposure bracket being aligned but then not cropped at the point where the image is less than three exposures deep. The rest of the merge looks fine. Please see the example of the edge of the zenith hole of the exported HDR DNG panorama below at 200%, showing the blue sky with a dark edge, which I assume is the edge of the EV -3.0 image. The band width/type varies from image to image, I assume, depending on the adjustments needed to align each bracket set. The problem is very apparent when using "Fill holes" as the edge influences the fill colour.

Masking the top edge of all the images at the top of the panorama does not help. I assume as all images are equally masked, the alignment process still leaves all edges uneven.

When using PTGui Pro 12.x I have merged the brackets elsewhere and provided 30 HDR TIFF images to PTGui to merge and I do not see this issue. "Fill hole" works fine. The same is also true using that process in PTGui Pro 13.2 trial, using HDR DNG as the source rather than HDR TIFF.

Is there a workaround? Is it possible for the edge of the images along the hole to be automatically cropped at the extent of the merge of all images in the bracket? I would rather use PTGui to do both the exposure and panorama merge.

Regards,
Rob

[PTGui Support]

Hi Rob,

I don't have a good solution for this I'm afraid. Fill Hole will use the
colors at the edges so it will look bad. Perhaps the HDR merger in PTGui
can be adjusted to output transparent pixels in areas where some pixels
are missing, I'll add this to the wish list.

It's a bit of a hassle but I think the patch might work. Navigate the
detail viewer towards the zenith, such that the entire hole is visible.
Create Patch. Then in the Patch Editor, use the Cut tool to trim the
colored edge.

Then use either the patch tool or Fill Holes to fill the gap.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

> Screenshot from 2025-06-24 20-42-33.png
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "PTGui Support" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to ptgui+un...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:ptgui+un...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
> ptgui/264eb01e-cc22-46c1-b513-f4ecb3e69ea6n%40googlegroups.com <https://
> groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/264eb01e-cc22-46c1-b513-
> f4ecb3e69ea6n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Rob Hunter]

Hi Joost,

Thanks for the ideas of the workarounds.

Method 1:

- Open the Detail Viewer and rotate and zoom to the zenith.

- Open the PTGui patch editor.

- Trim the patch to remove the affected areas.

- Save and close the patch editor.

- Add a red mask to the top of all of the images bordering the zenith, ensuring that the patch is large enough to replace the masked areas. This is because the patch transparent area will not overwrite the zenith border image tops.

- The panorama zenith border is now based on the trimmed patch.

- "Fill hole" in the Panorma Editor

- The fill is free of the edge artifacts.

Method 2:

- Open the Detail Viewer and rotate and zoom to the zenith.

- Open Photoshop as the patch editor at the zenith.

- Trim the patch to remove the affected areas.

- Fill the hole with generative or content aware fill.

- Save and close Photoshop

- No need to red mask the tops of the images bordering the zenith as the green masked patch has no transparent region. 

Both Methods were HDR so OpenEXR was used for the patches.

I prefer Method 1 as it's "in house"

It would be great if the HDR merger in PTGui could be adjusted to output transparent pixels in areas where some pixels are missing, but the workarounds work in the meantime!

Regards,

Rob