# Panoramas...How to have a consistent blue sky?



## jrda2 (Sep 30, 2013)

I currently shoot panoramas using a tripod with my camera in manual mode, manual focus, and manual white balance. Right now I use the Canon PhotoStitch software that came with my camera. Whenever the shots used for the panorama have a blue sky, the blue is never consistent across the entire panorama. You can almost always see a faint line at the stitching site revealing slightly different shades of blue. Any ideas on how to correct the problem? I looked thru previous panorama threads and saw that PTGui is highly recommended - not sure if better software would help?

Thanks in advance.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 30, 2013)

jrda2 said:


> I currently shoot panoramas using a tripod with my camera in manual mode, manual focus, and manual white balance. Right now I use the Canon PhotoStitch software that came with my camera. Whenever the shots used for the panorama have a blue sky, the blue is never consistent across the entire panorama. You can almost always see a faint line at the stitching site revealing slightly different shades of blue. Any ideas on how to correct the problem? I looked thru previous panorama threads and saw that PTGui is highly recommended - not sure if better software would help?
> 
> Thanks in advance.



PhotoStitch is not good for that, I tried it a couple of times but dropped it for that one issue. I now use Photoshop, it does a much better job.

As well as all your manual settings, are you using a filter of any kind? CPL's are notorious for causing banding in stitches too.

You can make your results better but you need a better editing program to do it, but when the banding goes through clouds it can be time consuming to really get ride of all the banding. A variety of post processing techniques are available, but it depends on what other software you have. Cloning, blurring etc can all help.


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## Drizzt321 (Sep 30, 2013)

privatebydesign said:


> jrda2 said:
> 
> 
> > I currently shoot panoramas using a tripod with my camera in manual mode, manual focus, and manual white balance. Right now I use the Canon PhotoStitch software that came with my camera. Whenever the shots used for the panorama have a blue sky, the blue is never consistent across the entire panorama. You can almost always see a faint line at the stitching site revealing slightly different shades of blue. Any ideas on how to correct the problem? I looked thru previous panorama threads and saw that PTGui is highly recommended - not sure if better software would help?
> ...



Better filters to use for sky are ND Grad, either hard, soft, or reverse depending on what's on the horizon and what you're trying to catch. That'll help get your exposure correct across the entire frame.

And don't use variable ND filters, at least not with wide/super-wide angle lenses. Even with standard lenses, you can get weird stuff at times because a variable ND is basically 2 polarizing filters that you can line up, or go through variable amounts of crossing to eliminate light. Generally those are not recommended.


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## jrda2 (Sep 30, 2013)

Thanks privatebydesign and Drizzt321. Not using a CPL or ND filter for the shots in question. I do use LR 5 to batch process the images to make sure my adjustments are consistent. After working in LR, I would then stitch the pano. 

I wondered if it might be Photostitch. I was trying to avoid purchasing photoshop just for pano work. Are there any other programs you would recommend?


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## privatebydesign (Sep 30, 2013)

Make sure you use Lens Correction too, it is often a natural lens vignetting issue. LightRooms auto setting is very good for most Canon lenses.


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## wtlloyd (Oct 1, 2013)

you might take a look at using "match total exposures" in Lightroom develop module, under "settings" prior to stitching...


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## jrda2 (Oct 1, 2013)

wtlloyd said:


> you might take a look at using "match total exposures" in Lightroom develop module, under "settings" prior to stitching...



Thanks. Will do


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## rpt (Oct 1, 2013)

wtlloyd said:


> you might take a look at using "match total exposures" in Lightroom develop module, under "settings" prior to stitching...


Hmmm. This is new. Thanks. Will try it.

These days I use ICE. I used to stitch panoramas with Autostitch. Take a look at http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/brown/autostitch/autostitch.html. The issue with Autostitch is that it is a 3 month demo. You can download it again after that time though. And it is a Windows only demo...


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## candc (Oct 1, 2013)

I have tried all the pano stitching software and I think ptgui is the best. Its going to be brighter on the sun side but not unnatural if you Pick an exposure that doesn't blow out the highlights completely, shoot small jpeg and let ptgui do the rest. Don't try to balance the shots, ptgui will do that for you


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## candc (Oct 1, 2013)

its really tough to get rid of the bright sky spot completely but you shouldn't get any stitching lines, this is about the worst it should be


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## candc (Oct 1, 2013)

interiors are easier


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## wickidwombat (Oct 2, 2013)

jrda2 said:


> Thanks privatebydesign and Drizzt321. Not using a CPL or ND filter for the shots in question. I do use LR 5 to batch process the images to make sure my adjustments are consistent. After working in LR, I would then stitch the pano.
> 
> I wondered if it might be Photostitch. I was trying to avoid purchasing photoshop just for pano work. Are there any other programs you would recommend?



Autostitch is awesome and been around for ages and is free, but its windows only...


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## Botts (Oct 2, 2013)

jrda2 said:


> I currently shoot panoramas using a tripod with my camera in manual mode, manual focus, and manual white balance. Right now I use the Canon PhotoStitch software that came with my camera. Whenever the shots used for the panorama have a blue sky, the blue is never consistent across the entire panorama. You can almost always see a faint line at the stitching site revealing slightly different shades of blue. Any ideas on how to correct the problem? I looked thru previous panorama threads and saw that PTGui is highly recommended - not sure if better software would help?
> 
> Thanks in advance.



Try the autopano demo. I love that tool, it handles raw and can do exposure blending.


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## Pancho (Oct 2, 2013)

Personnaly I use Hugin, an open source photo stiching software. It has both an easy user frendly automatic mode and a manual mode which gives access to all parameters. I never had problem on blue sky banding with this SW while I had it all the time with photostich...


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## stefsan (Oct 2, 2013)

> Try the autopano demo. I love that tool, it handles raw and can do exposure blending.



+1
Of all the stitching tools I tried Kolor Autopano performs best. It does a terrific job with blending the skies – even if you use a circular polariser for contrast. And it gives you a lot of control over what you want done with the stitched picture. Not cheap but well worth the investment if you are serious about high quality panos.


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## alexanderferdinand (Oct 2, 2013)

I have used the Panorama function in CS6.
The first one I left frustrated because of the same issue like the TO, was my mistake, because of using a polfilter.
The next few looked fine.
Thanks for the remembering of PTGUI, heard about it, forgot it.


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## Sporgon (Oct 2, 2013)

Yes PTgui is the one. In fact it's so good we can actually shoot in AV in order to gain accurate exposure over a genuinly wide dynamic range, shooting into the light and then 90 degrees plus away etc.


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## jrda2 (Oct 2, 2013)

Sporgon said:


> Yes PTgui is the one. In fact it's so good we can actually shoot in AV in order to gain accurate exposure over a genuinly wide dynamic range, shooting into the light and then 90 degrees plus away etc.



Tried the PTGui demo today - wow, what a difference. I redid a few of my pano shots with the trial software, and it basically eliminated the banding I had using Photostitch.

Thanks


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