I wrote this article on stitching photos into a panoramic image a while ago, but I am re-posting it to the blog as it was lost for a while after I redesigned my site – some of the newer readers to this site may find it helpful.

In this tutorial I will explain my work flow for producing a stitched panoramic photograph; from shooting on location, right through the stitching process, to presenting the final image.

What you will need…

I have used a couple of stitching programs in the past but find PTGui Pro to be the best of the lot, so this tutorial will be based around PTGui Pro. Other programs I have used for stitching include Adobe Photoshop and Autostitch. You can download a trial version of PTGui here.

A panoramic tripod head is not essential, but does come in handy, especially when you have objects in the foreground close to the camera. I am currently using a Nodal Ninja 3 MkII when I am shooting panoramic photos.

Shooting your photographs…

There are a few things to keep in mind while you are out shooting panoramic photographs.

First of all, you need to make sure your camera is set to manual exposure mode (M) so that the shutter speed and aperture are the same for each frame you will be stitching. You will also need set your camera to manual focus and white balance.

Make sure that your tripod is as level as possible. This helps to keep horizons straight and horizontal, and helps keep buildings perfectly vertical. My Nodal Ninja tripod head has a small bulls-eye level on it for quick and easy leveling.

Try to overlap your images by about 20 – 30%. I use a Canon 5D with 50mm lens and find that 15 degree turns between each frame creates a nice amount of overlap.

If you follow these few steps you should end up with a series of photographs that look something like this:

I generally play around with my images in Adobe Camera Raw (fixing exposure, white balance, levels, etc) before exporting them as .TIF files ready to be stitched. This can be done before or after stitching – it doesn’t make much of a difference. For this example, I have adjusted the photographs before stitching. See above.

The stitching process…

1 Once you have adjusted your photographs and they are looking good, you can open up PTGui and import the photos for stitching by clicking on the “Load images…” button and selecting your files.

2 When your photos have loaded and you can see them across the screen, click on the “Align Images” button.

3 Your photographs will now be automatically stitched together. If you have done a great job while shooting you might already be happy with what you see. If so, you can go ahead and skip to step 8.

4 If you can see some flaws in the stitch job you can probably fix them up by inserting a few more control points. Click the “Advanced >>” button at the top right corner of the “Project Assistant” tab and then open up the “Control Points” tab. Most of the time, I find the problem I have is that the horizon is a little crooked or a building isn’t standing straight. These flaws can be fixed by using the horizontal and vertical control points.

5 There is a great tutorial on how to use horizontal and vertical control points in PTGUI

6 After I have inserted some control points around the photos, I will go back to the “Project Assistant” tab and click the “Optimize” button this will let you know how well your control points have been placed. I usually get “Very Good” as a result which I am usually happy with.

7 After optimizing the control points, I will preview the final image just to make sure everything is how I want it to look. If the preview isn’t quite looking perfect yet, I will then go back and place some more control points around the photos where things aren’t aligning properly.

8 If you are happy with the way the preview looks, It is time to export the final image. I will make sure I set the image to it’s maximum possible width and change the file type to .TIF so there is no compression/damage done to the image.

Finishing Touches…

Now that my photos are stitched together into one large image, I will load that image up in Adobe Photoshop and add some finishing touches (dodge/burn, adjust curves some more if needed, saturation, sharpness, etc) and hopefully it will turn out something like this:

If you have any questions or know of a better way to stitch photographs please send me an email. Thanks!