bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

The new release of Lightroom includes HDR and Panorama processing built in. Can they be combined? Can you shoot a panoramic series of bracketed exposures of a scene that includes wide exposure values?

Like most old churches, Copenhagen’s Frederik's Church (also called The Marble Church), is a photographic challenge for a tourist. The light is difficult, it is too big for common lenses, tripods are not a good idea, noisy cameras can be considered rude and other tourists will be in the way.

Two days before this trip LR6 was released and I watched a couple of videos on the new features. Among them were the HDR and Panorama processing without exporting or using plug-ins. And, unlike other HDR processing I’ve used, it is all with RAW images, with RAW output and no color cooking. The color manipulation is reserved for the photographer’s use of the many sliders and tools.

New for the trip was my Panasonic LX100. I could make a long list of why it is a fantastic travel camera, but for this shot the feature that counts is fast auto bracketing in the silent (electronic shutter) mode on automatic “P” exposure for RAW image files. Could there be a better approach? Of course, but I was there as a tourist with only a moment for the shot.

I shot handheld, set the camera to shoot 5 bracketed exposures from minus two to plus two stops. I rotated so that each of the six sets overlapped by a guesstimate of about 25%. It takes about a second to get the 5 brackets, so the total shoot was about 10 seconds, including aiming and framing. I ignored the tourists that were in the way because there was not time to wait for them to move.

Once home, I signed up (new to me) for the Adobe CC and got LR and Ps installed. In Lightroom I combined each set of 5 RAW exposures to one RAW (.dng) image using the LR automated settings. Then I combined the 6 resulting HDR images into a single Panorama that is also in RAW (.dng). I used the LR Crop tool to pick the best part and eliminate one tourist. The best crop left a blank spot in one corner. This almost finished file is 75MBs!

To fix the blank spot, I wanted to test the (new to me) Photoshop CC Healing Brush. LR passed the 75MB RAW Pano to Ps as a PSD. The Healing Brush worked well. Saving sent the file back to LR, still as a PSD, but it is now about 100MB.

There is no way to post a 100MB PSD for you, so I used LR to export a JPEG of 4,000KB.

For me, this was an experiment in processing. Now that I know it works, I’m going to start looking for HDR opportunities that include extreme light and need a wide view. The automation of the camera and LR make this too easy to ignore.

Any and all comments and criticism are welcome. I'd like to learn how to clone out a few tourists! That is next.

(Download)

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Nice work!

:thumbup: :thumbup:

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Actual processing took about 30 minutes. Now I need to find some scenes where this works better and think more about composition. And, I may need some panorama paper for my printer!

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

What amazes me is that I used to think panorama's must be so hard to do, and perhaps at one time they must have been, but now they are a snap. I get to where I look for panorama shots in everything ;)


HDR & panorama - hand held, now that is kool!

Bob Yankle Loc: Burlington, NC

Not "nice", more than that ...... this is what I would call masterful.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Thanks! But, my part was doing a version of an automatic tourist snapshot. The masterful magical comes from craftsmen of a 150 years ago and Adobe technicians this year. Throw in a little wizardry from Pansonic, too. The idea for the technique was watching a Kelby Training promotional session where a guest asked if it could be done. Kelby replied that he didn't know and that he didn't know why not!

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

Bill - good job. I actually don't find the tourists too distracting. Adds a human element if you will.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Thank you. I had the same thought. I may try to use this as a training item for my new copy of Photoshop CC and get rid of all the people except the couple on the extreme left in the back pew. I've used Elements some, but this is my first access to the "pro" model of Ps. With just two people in it I think it would have a bit more of a story.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Could you post for comparison on of your nominal images?

Otherwise great demonstration of capabilities and workflow.

On download I see a misalignment of the pews on the left rear. Should be easy to fix with clone stamp.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

I would be glad to post some "nominal images" but they are all in RAW format and there are 30. What exactly do you want to see?

The project was in fact a workflow experiment. Now that I know the capability is there, I can look for panoramic scenes that cam take advantage of HDR processing. Although the interior of a church has relatively high dynamic range, I suspect some near sunset and sunrise scenes will take better advantage of expanded dynamic range.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

For anyone reading this, a quick and easy explanation of the HDR process in LR6 can be watched here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDZg8vBVYZU

It is exactly what I did, except that I did it 6 times to make the image to stitch with the Merge Panorama tool.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Just one example for reference...a nominal image kinda in the center. Export as jpeg about 3MB to upload with "store original" checked. Just to get an idea of what you had to work with.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

The LR 6 pano feature works quite well on smaller panos but when pushed with several rows and columns it gets lost apparently. I cannot determine what the limiting factor(s) is. I was processing numerous handheld single row panos from Hawaii and it whipped through them quickly. The resulting composited raw image is a great feature also. For panos LR cannot do due to their size or complexity I now use ICE almost exclusively because it has improved tremendously since it first came out. It easily stitches panos I tested it on with up to 272 images.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Mid exposure, center shot. One of 30:

(Download)

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

I tried the new ICE because it is supposed to do panos from video. It choked on 4K footage from my Panasonic LX100. Apparently I have to pull my own JPEGs from the footage and then feed them to ICE. I have not tried it but, it is on my to do list.