Athdhéan…

As promised some 2 or 3 posts ago, I wanted to talk a "bit" about re-making some old panoramas (specially that I'm not shooting any panoramas lately, even before COVID season!). I almost abandoned the idea and thought it is somewhat useless, but I proved my own self wrong in fact. In this post I'll explain the story a bit further.

Remake

As a starter, the reason that I'm visiting some of my old panoramas to remake them is that I want to change the processing. Most of my panoramas are done in HDR and then tone-mapped (typically), except for few "special" panoramas which were done using long exposures.
Anyway, as I'm learning new editing techniques (in RAW), specifically those considering dark exposures to add more drama to the scene (instead of making a normal bright exposure), I've decided to try and stitch some panoramas using the dark exposures, or reducing the exposure if needed. All was to be saved as TIFF 16bit mostly (to keep as much as data as possible in each image), and then a trial to stitch was set.

Inchagoillic

The beginnings were not quite "easy," starting with Inchagoillic which is a panorama shot inside Inchagoill church on Inchagoill island back in 2014. I picked this panorama specifically because I didn't really like the version that I've made out of it using HDR technique and it was hard to fix the looks:

The older version

There is a problem also with the perspective apparently. Anyway, my focus was on the colors and the general looks. The process was not easy because of some change in exposure (brightness/darkness) of the images specially of the top row images. This row specifically mostly comes dark in most panoramas (that is the set of the same image order in the sequence of HDR shooting, which happens to be the 2nd image here from each set).

The preview of the initial stitch in PTGui. Notice the dark arch and the dark splotches on the tree and elsewhere, all concentrated on the topmost part of the image.

I've tried some solutions here, but eventually, none did work out properly:

• Make a stitch of the first images in the set of bracketed HDR shots, editing them to be darker, for the general mood that I wanted to achieve here.
• Make a merge between the original set of 2nd images, and picking the top row from the set of 1st images.

Both of these solutions didn't work out well for one reason or another, and generally speaking the exposure was not uniform or smooth in some way. My last resort to this problem, then, was to cut out a portion of the blending for the top row of images (i.e. reduce their contribution to the whole image).

The borders of the blended portion of each image in the panorama as seen in PTGui. Notice how the dark splotches in the top row (14-25) are mainly accumulated in the lower part of the images. By reducing the "blending priority" of these images, the lower portion gets omitted and would not contribute to the overall looks.

Despite this "fix" for these dark spots, the solution itself was really dependent on the panorama here and the nature of the scene. Also, the final stitch was not free of more work with dodge and burn to enhance some areas, specially whatever remained of those dark spots. Going through some of the old panoramas trying to figure out a number of these solutions made it clear that it is not the solution I was looking for and in fact it became lengthier than working with a HDR panorama itself. On various occasions though, it was possible to cut the panorama short (crop from the sides or top and bottom, etc) to make a somewhat good looking panorama, like Gnomes Asleep.

Gnomes Asleep

Gnomes Asleep was a panorama that I've shot back in 2012 for the Victorian B&B but I've never stitched it before because of the troublesome contrast when it was shot. The gap in exposure values exceeded 2EV and even though I've shot it for HDR stitching, it turned out that the highlights were out of the range still. Adding to that, I didn't quite like the perspective and the angle of the shoot. Anyway, there was a final shooting trial which made its way and was "proper" in terms of exposure and perspective. This forgotten panorama did have a chance though through editing the RAW files and stitching them (after converting to TIFF 16bit) but the problem remained with those dark areas and splotches. To solve it, I've simply cut out the panorama short.
Those who are familiar with PTGui probably do know already that there are options and controllers to adjust the exposure of the panorama and fix few issues related to that, and I did indeed give it a try. However, the results were catastrophic and nothing really worked. I do believe now though that these options are there for HDR panoramas specifically. It would have been a good option if I can just stitch the RAW files and save the outcome as some sort of DNG, where I can edit this stitched panorama like I do with any RAW file and hence do the effects and the split-toning required for the looks I want, but this is unfortunately unavailable and the RAW files MUST be edited and prepared for the stitch. This fact, forces me to convert RAW files into TIFFs and stitch from there.

In The Grace Of The Cormac

All these limitations made it clear to me that there is no easy way out, and I've really started to lose heart with it. It wasn't all bad though. In panoramas like In The Grace Of The Cormac, for example, I've stitched the panorama twice: One time as a normal stitch, and another time with exposure adjustments or optimization done inside PTGui. I've noticed that with optimization, some areas are better in exposure than the normal stitch (which was either too bright or too dark). In Photoshop (of course!) the two versions were merged and enhanced with layer masks combining the best of the two as much as possible. It was flattering indeed to see this panorama being marked as "Inspirational" on YouPic as well!

Fothrach Órga
(golden ruins)

Still, despite the progress a bit with In The Grace Of The Cormac, it was inevitable to do the lengthy hard work: Editing all photos of the panorama in RAW, each to its own, to fix the exposure, because I was not lucky all the time. Apparently, the whole thing was more time consuming than working with HDR panoramas, but it is worthy to try if it was about adding drama to the panoramas that I've done in the past (specially that they usually look bright and shiny with HDR, and getting them dark a bit sounded a bit romantic at times!). For this reason, I've developed a routine to make things as steady as possible (but it is not really):

1. Pick a focal image (focus of interest) and do all the editing needed on it. Typically this would be the first image in the set, but it can be another image in the set at times.
2. Synchronize all these edits for all images.
3. Now, go over all these images and check how bright or dark it would be in comparison to the edited image in the beginning. At this level, I try to not touch anything except for the exposure slider, and if that didn't work then I would adjust the tones with the parametric curve section. 
4. Usually a sub-set (e.g. the images of the top row) would have the same problem, so I synchronize them all to the adjustments (in exposure) done to the first one in the sub-set. 

As it can be seen, it is such a lengthy work. However, the goal of adjusting the exposure is to be close in brightness and not absolutely pin down the exposure between the slides. PTGui still do some good work (though limited) when it comes to equalizing the exposure among the slides of the panorama, but apparently fails when the gap in brightness is great. So, it is enough to just get them close, visually.

Ceann Scríbe
(destination)

With all that hard work, it was still inevitable to do various versions of the same panorama but with changing the exposure or optimization in PTGui, just in case it was needed. Usually, one version (the regular or normal stitch) would be enough but there were times when I've used 2 versions of the panorama and even 3 versions merged together, as is the case with Ceann Scríbe, where I've used the topmost portion of the bright version, and the ground for the normal version, and then used the darker version just to enhance the sun flare as it was too bright in the other two versions. It sound like HDR but it's not; In HDR, the images are combined in a special format and technically it's like "painting with light in the image" but in this work we are getting a bit picky about what pixels do we need and not. However, many panoramas remake so far were done using only one version or the regular stitch version from the RAW (after editing them) without any need for the other versions, but I keep stitching them just in case.

Don Eaglais
(to the church)

Along with these new stitches or remakes, comes a change in perspective. Many of these panoramas that I've been doing (and will keep on for some time) had been altered in terms of composition or changing the center of attention (which was typically placed at the center of the panorama). Panoramas like In The Grace of The Cormac above, was done keeping the human element (the lady photographer at the center) which was originally removed when I stitched this back in 2010, and the point of interest was shifted left or right as is the case with Don Eaglais (and even adding a touch to the sun there to make up for the dramatic look), or as is the case with Ceann Scríbe where another point of interest is placed at the center (and I think it is even better). I would have posted the old and new versions of each panorama for comparison but it would make the post even longer than it is already.

Finale

So, this was my story with the remakes of panoramas, old and new; Well, all are old in fact. The work is still going on with more panoramas and I've been quite amazed by the results. They are kind of astonishing more than the original HDRs that I've created in the past. This said, however, that does not mean I will not be shooting HDR panoramas the next time I'm on it. Better play it safe and do the routine and then think of other choices, like the thing I'm doing here already.

الأَنْدَلُسِيْ (The Andalusian)

As for the reasons behind all of that tedious work, the answer lies in the looks and inspiration. Generally speaking, we have to admit that many of our inspirations as photographers do come in the processing phase rather than at the shooting phase. Not to say that there is no inspiration at all during the shoot or prior to the shoot even, but processing sometimes yields results that we didn't imagine at times or simply did not think it was possible. Viewing things in the viewfinder or on the LCD at the back of the camera is not the same as viewing an image, on a monitor, using a wide color space such as ProPhoto (just an example). The colors are simply beyond the simple rendering of the LCD and the human eye even at times.
For such reasons, I've decided to cross the mile and try to do the lengthy work with the RAW files instead of the HDR as it was done before. I might be able to produce the looks using the HDR indeed using many adjustment layers and many layer masks, but the knot that needs to be tied here lies in the fact that I'm not sure what I'm expecting and what is that I'm really seeking out of the looks. There are some panoramas that have changed completely in looks, not only by colors, but also in composition. I've even created 2 separate versions for some of these panoramas and published them both, and I might try a trend with "bright" panoramas whenever it is possible to do so.

An Castán Dorcha
(the dark chestnut)

An Castán Geal
(the bright chestnut)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is my "little" story with the remakes of many panoramas, and many to come further, hopefully. By doing all this, I've been actually giving myself a dose of confidence even at some level here, specially with the success of stitching the nadir point in The Andalusian. It was one of these rare panoramas were I would usually take a nadir shot and try to stitch (with few procedures on-location and in PTGui); A practice that I didn't perform much really but this seems promising and for some reason, seems a bit easier to be done when stitching from regular files like TIFFs, instead of HDRs. 

On another plane, I think I've been getting back my appetite to work with the camera further, rather slowly, specially with the weather change here (we already had the first rains of... winter?). I had my first stroll outside, which hopefully won't be the only one, and I might blog about that the next time!