Stitching digital photos together

[Mike Holloway]

I'm a Loc scout in New Zealand and I've been looking
for a software product to automatically stitch together
digital photos shot as a panorama. I used a very good
product on a job a year ago that belonged to a
production company, but I'm overseas at the moment and
can't contact them and I can't remember what it was
called. Do you know of any good ones?
Thanks for your help (in advance)
Mike Holloway

[Hove, Va]

Mike,

There is some software you can purchase from Apple (also for windows) : Attention : It doesn't stitch automatically !!! But see the attachment with an example.

"QuickTake 200 for Macintosh and Windows
About Apple Software Order Center

The Apple Software Order Center provides currently shipping Apple software. The Apple
Software Order Center is available in both Canada and the United States. Price quotes are
in U.S. Dollars and do not include tax or shipping and handling costs. Pricing subject to change without notice.

Phone Numbers: United States: +1 (800)293-6617
Canada: +1 (888) 295-0653 "

Once you have the software, you can always ask for help using it. As I said : we
have a panorama (2 images) in +/- 20 secs, 3 images in 30 secs... We use this
extremely simple software since 5 years and I never found something better.
Worth having...

[Hove, Va]

Mike,

There is some software you can purchase from Apple (also for windows) : Attention : It doesn't stitch automatically !!! But see the attachment with an example of three pictures taken with an Olympus 820 (Europe) 35mm lens, low quality and after stitching compressed for netviewing.

Hereafter the information from Apple-site :
"QuickTake 200 for Macintosh and Windows
The Apple Software Order Center provides currently shipping Apple software. The Apple
Software Order Center is available in both Canada and the United States. Price quotes are
in U.S. Dollars and do not include tax or shipping and handling costs. Pricing subject to change without notice.

Phone Numbers: United States: +1 (800)293-6617
Canada: +1 (888) 295-0653 "

Once you have the software, you can always ask for help using it. As I said : we
have a panorama (2 images) in +/- 20 secs, 3 images in 30 secs... We use this
extremely simple software since 5 years and I never found something better.
Worth having...

[Marino Pascal]

Jo,
do you have a link for this program I couldn't find it at the apple site.

Marino

[Marino Pascal]

Here is a list of many stitching tools. I've only used Photovista which is OK.

Panoguide.com (http://www.panoguide.com/software/compare.html) (it will open in a new window)

[Matt Woodson]

I use PV as Marino does, v2.0 has shown improvements in contrast control (see attachment, I used v1.3 for this stitch). PV will "automatically" stitch together the images. But if you want to stitch a whole series of panos together you must wait till one is done and then stitch the next. If you enjoy sitting in front of a computer for days at a time, this is fine. To get around this problem I wrote a macro, which basically uses the "sendkeys" method in VB. I'm sure apple script has similar abilities. The macro steps through records in my database for which I entered all the data about a particular pano (date, direction, keywords, & original image files). It took a while to work out all the bugs, but now I get back to the office after a scout, do a half hour of data entry, and let the computer stitch images together automatically. I then batch the resulting images using PhotoShop the next day. I used Visual Stitcher, from Panavue.com, for a while with good results. Last I checked, you could set up a schedule of stitch jobs so it works while you're away from your machine. I'm just trying to automate the paste up process! You can find a sample PDF file I use for location folders at: http://ie.yimg.com/e/ced69a4e/h/56312dde/StraweberyBanke.PDF. It's 1.3 mb, and prints on legal size paper. I compromise some on the resolution for file size, someday I would like do have photo quality images.

[Matt Woodson]

I use PV as Marino does, v2.0 has shown improvements in contrast control (see attachment, I used v1.3 for this stitch). PV will "automatically" stitch together the images. But if you want to stitch a whole series of panos together you must wait till one is done and then stitch the next. If you enjoy sitting in front of a computer for days at a time, this is fine. To get around this problem I wrote a macro, which basically uses the "sendkeys" method in VB. I'm sure apple script has similar abilities. The macro steps through records in my database for which I entered all the data about a particular pano (date, direction, keywords, & original image files). It took a while to work out all the bugs, but now I get back to the office after a scout, do a half hour of data entry, and let the computer stitch images together automatically. I then batch the resulting images using PhotoShop the next day. I used Visual Stitcher, from Panavue.com, for a while with good results. Last I checked, you could set up a schedule of stitch jobs so it works while you're away from your machine. I'm just trying to automate the paste up process! You can find a sample PDF file I use for location folders at: http://briefcase.yahoo.com/filmnh. It's 1.3 mb, and prints on legal size paper. I compromise some on the resolution for file size, someday I would like do have photo quality images.

[Bill Buerge]

I have an Olympus Camdlia D-360-L. Cost$300. The camera and bundled software have a panorama feature that stitches pictures together pretty nicely although I'm very new at it. It appears, however, that you can only stitch photos that were taken by this camera set in the "panorama mode" when shooting at the location. Does anyone know if its possible to use this software to stitch scanned-in photos taken in close sequence (overlapping) with a film camera? I have so many previously shot prints I want to stitch together if possible. Does the other software mentioned here, especially Photo vista, stitch any pictures together?

[Marino Pascal]

It's not worth it scanning individual 4x6 prints and then use software to stitch the individual scanned images. It's a lot easier to tape the prints together (from the back) and then do one scan for the whole panorama.

[R. Hobbs]

I have tried several including pasting pics together as layers in Photoshop and am very comfortable with Photovista.
best
RH
R. Richard Hobbs
New York City area based Photography Production Coordination/ Location
Scouting- Mgt/ Casting Services
email: rrhobbs@rrhobbs.com
web: http://www.rrhobbs.com/

[T. Miller]

Mike, you should check out a new site called www.360locationscout.com

They have developed software which produces flawless 360x360 images (pans around and up and down) from images that you upload to the site. The resulting files can be easily emailed or uploaded onto your own website. There is a fee for each assembled image, but that is it.

The images are assembled automatically by the software within their server. There is no software to buy, but you need a fisheye lens and tripod.

I think it is a nice clean solution. Check it out.

[R. Hobbs]

I use PhotoVista too.

It works pretty well but can get get "stupid" at times (it fails to find and match up the right pixels), you have to keep an eye on it or you get 2 couches or a very abreviated tree....

But how can I complain, it used to be free when I got it now I think it is $49.00.

It works fine for what we do.

best

RH

R. Richard Hobbs
New York City area based Photography Production Coordination/ Location
Scouting-Mgt/ Casting Services
email: rrhobbs@rrhobbs.com
web: http://www.rrhobbs.com/
973-472-7646 office
917-747-0856 cel
212-202-5280 fax