My Autopano Pro forum

No bracketing!

The manually adjusted but automatic exposure mode I puposedly used (the camera manufacturer call this "Electro Selective Pattern" + "exposure compensation") resulted in a difference of more than 2 EV between the left and the right side: not a suprise as the panorama FOV is larger than 180 degrees.

I developed each of the nine RAW files to 3 brightness levels: 0 (no change), +1 EV  and +2EV so that this resulted in 27 TIFF images:

Last edited by GURL (2008-08-15 21:21:48)

Finally I used Enfuse (EnfuseGUI actually) to fuse the resulting 3 layers:

Thank you GURL!

I sometimes use the same .pano file for rendering bracketed shots. I first put all shots that have visible shadows and highlights, e.g. 0EV shots, into a main dir, lets call it /forest/
I create as many subdirs as there are brackets, typically 3 (for that balcony pano I posted recently 5), /forest/1/ /forest/2/ /forest/3/ and forget about them for now.
I use the 0EV layer because it has details in the shadows and in the highlights (sky), if there are clouds then the clouds are still visible, perhaps only slightly blown out but visible enough to be able to place CPs, if there are no clouds then it doesnt matter since a bad stitch wont be visible.
Once I have set everything up on that pano I save it to /forest/forest.pano and close it in APP.
I now move the 0EV images from /forest/ to /forest/2/, the -2EV images to /forest/1/ and the +2 to /forest/3/
I make sure that all the images in /1/, /2/ and /3/ have the same name, 001.raw 002.raw 003.raw 004.raw 005.raw --- 033.raw for example.
I now open the forest.pano and APP says "Oi! I cant find the files!" So it opens a window and all I have to do is point it to the correct dir. So I point it once to /1/, then open the /forest/forest.pano again and point it to /2/, and then again to /3/.
Now I have 3 panos with identical settings waiting to be rendered. I can also use smartblend, but of course this method wont get rid of ghosting. In some situations tufuse chooses quite wisely so I dont have ghosts, or you could use photomatix's anti-ghosting feature. I'm not fond of the anti-ghosting feature in Qtpfsgui. Photomatix's antighosting isn't good for waves either (in my experience), the brightest parts tend to get suddenly black.
Another problem with this is that although the .pano files have identical settings, there CAN be some differences between the layers, sometimes the smartblend image-crossover-border can be 'here' in layer 1, moved 20px 'there' in layer 2, and 'here' again in layer 3.

I chose the above method because it lets me do global tonemapping afterwards and I can use smartblend. The problem with slight differences isn't serious because typically they appear in quite dark places, although it does happen that they fall in a visible place. I hope that the stacking feature in APP-2 will make this method obsolete, but untill then thats what I use.

Your method seems great for places that don't have very great brightness differences, or for places that have many moving things, like markets!

mgg310 wrote:

Have you tried using the Auto Bracketing function available in TuFusion (the free GUI for TuFuse)?

Not yet, but I will !

Castillonis , I tried Tufusion and TufusePro on Windows XP for RAW files, too.

Tufusion: when using it I had to rename my Olympus .ORF RAW files as .CR2 to make Tufusion accepting to send them to dcraw,  / what a workaround! (It looks like dcraw was smart enough to process them correctly...)
I was not able to make Tufusion fuses a normal version and two brighter ones (0EV, +1EV and +2EV): a single brighter one is possible.

Tufuse: Tufuse accept Olympus RAW files normally. Like when using Tufusion, I was not able to instruct Tufuse to fuse the normal version and two brighter ones (0EV, +1EV and +2EV) : a single brighter one is possible.
Because my camera RAW files are known for having no "headroom" (that is one can't save any overblown part of an image by developing it using -n EV compensation) I figured this was a severe limitation but my first tests seem to negate this...

Tufuse Pro don't preserve EXIF (focal length, etc) which is a pity

Last edited by GURL (2008-08-18 21:38:22)

I finally realized that three different methods exist to increase the "visible dynamic range" of "under exposed" but not blown out RAW shots:

(1) Enfuse or Tufuse

http://wiki.panotools.org/Enfuse

wiki.panotools.org  wrote:

Enfuse merges overlapping images using the Mertens-Kautz-Van Reeth exposure fusion algorithm. This is a quick way to blend differently exposed images into a nice output image, without producing intermediate HDR images that are then tonemapped to a viewable image. This simplified process often works much better than the currently known tonemapping algorithms.

http://www.tawbaware.com/tufusepro_help … utobracket

Max Lyons  wrote:

Autobracket TuFuse Pro can fuse each input image with a lighter and/or darker version of itself. When the "darken" or "brighten" sliders are set to non-zero values, then darker and/or brighter versions of each input image are created and fused with the original image(s). This can be useful to boost shadows and/or constrain highlights in a single image. For example, fusing a single image with a brighter version of itself will produce a final image with brightened shadow regions

(2) The "Nikon/D-Lighting & Sony/DRO & Olympus/SAT" method created by Apical:

http://www.apical-imaging.com/UserFiles/ad-iso.pdf

Michael Tusch  wrote:

[Our] image processing engine iridix generates a unique tone mapping curve for each pixel of the image, based on the behavior of the human visual system. [It's] "natural”, it’s calibrated to give an image as close as possible to what you see with your eyes when you take the picture (although you can increase or decrease the strength of the effect manually).

(3) Photop "Image - Adjustments - Shadow/Highlight" method (French: Tons foncés/Tons clairs):

PS help  wrote:

The Shadow/Highlight command does not simply lighten or darken an image; it lightens or darkens based on the surrounding pixels (local neighborhood) in the shadows or highlights.

(1) and possibly (2) are to be used before submiting images to APP/APG:
-  APP/APG is much more easy to use and faster because a single source image is used where "real bracketing" would use two or more.
- Smartblend can do its useful job and avoid ghosting.
- If the different RAW images are shot using different exposure values the APP AUTO color mode can take care of the differences.

(3) is to be used at post-processing level when the resulting panorama shadows are still too dark (not the default values but only a limited amount of shadows adjustment if you want to avoid what is known as the "HDR look"!)

Résumé: Shot a single "underexposed" series of RAW, process them using Enfuse or Tufuse, stitch them as usual, use PS Shadow/highlight if the result is still too dark.

Problems: Tufuse can process RAW directly but then the above "0, +1 and +2 EV" process is not possible and with both Enfuse and Tufuse EXIF are lost.

An example follows, where bracketing was not possible because the wind was moving the plants.