6 Top Panorama Problems
and How to Solve Them
Number 2 in a series of 6 free articles on panorama troubleshooting.
By Denis Knight, author of The Absolute Step-by-Step Guide to the Perfect Panorama.
Top Panorama Problem #2: Vignetting
Vignetting is a problem that some cameras have, where the picture gets noticeably darker in the very corners of the frame. It can be more common if your camera has a very wide angle lens, or a bulky filter mount or lens hood attached.
Often the effect is so gradual it's barely visible when looking at a single photo. But in panoramic photography, when a series of photos suffering from vignetting are stitched together into a panorama, the problem can become a lot more visible.
This is because if the amount of overlap between frames is small, the dark corners in each frame may join together causing curved dark areas at the top and bottom of the panoramic photo where the frames have been joined together.
If your panoramas are suffering from Problem 2, here's what you might see (the effect has been exaggerated here to make it easier to see):
Example panorama with vignetting.
Notice the curved dark areas at the top and bottom of the picture where the frames have been joined together.
Here are 6 different ways to solve vignetting in panoramic photos:
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Get rid of the cause of the vignetting. If you're using a lens hood or a filter, take it off and reshoot to see if this fixes the problem. |
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Zoom in a little bit. Often vignetting occurs on a zoom lens at its widest zoom setting. You might find that zooming in a fraction fixes the problem. |
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Try shooting with a smaller aperture (higher f/stop number). This may help because vignetting is often stronger at wider lens apertures. |
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Allow plenty of overlap between frames. If you allow plenty of overlap between your panoramic frames, you may find that the problem fixes itself. Even if the individual frames are a bit dark in the corners, by allowing a good sized overlap zone, the dark areas will be cropped out and won't even show up. |
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If you're trying to use photo stitching software to stitch together an existing series of photos with vignetting problems, and you're not in a position to reshoot the photos, you still have a couple of options. The first option is to do some pre-processing on the photos to correct the vignetting before photo stitching. You can do this manually in a photo editing package using a correction layer and a radial gradient. There are also a number of tools with built-in features to fix vignetting. For example, the 'Correct Camera Distortion filter in Photoshop Elements has a set of Vignette controls. Another example is PTLens, which is a standalone software package which can correct vignetting, as well as other common lens problems such as pincushion distortion, barrel distortion, and chromatic aberration. |
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And finally, if you've already stitched your panorama, you can manually remove the dark areas from the finished panorama, for example by using the Clone Stamp tool in Photoshop. Keep in mind though, that this is by far the most time consuming method, so you should keep it as a last resort. Some of my early panoramas, which I shot using a film SLR camera with a 28mm lens equipped with a UV filter, show some nasty vignetting. Unfortunately I didn't know much about panoramas at the time so I didn't allow much overlap. I've been able to manually retouch a few of my favorites in Photoshop, but it's slow and painstaking work. |
Here's the same panorama with the vignetting removed. This was done manually after the panorama was stitched together, using the 'Clone Stamp' tool in Photoshop.
Example panorama with vignetting removed in Photoshop.
So there you go. If your panoramic photos are ending up with dark areas caused by vignetting, I'm sure you'll be able to improve them by trying one of the six solutions I've suggested in this article.
In tomorrow's article I'll describe the problem of 'Ghosting', which gave me a lot of headaches in my early attempts at creating panoramas. I wasted hours of painstaking effort trying to manually fix this problem, before I discovered the simple secrets I'll be sharing with you tomorow.
All the best until then.
Kind Regards
Denis Knight
Learn More...
If you've found this article useful, I invite you to learn more in my brand new e-Book, The Absolute Step-by-Step Guide to the Perfect Panorama.
With my easy to follow, fully illustrated instructions, you'll quickly master the basics of creating stunning panoramic images like the ones featured in this article.
When you buy the e-book, you'll also receive the six great free bonuses listed below.
Get it now at www.ThePerfectPanorama.com
| Your 6 Free Bonuses For Ordering Today | |
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Bonus 1: 12 months of FREE advice and technical support with your panoramas. |
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Bonus 3: FREE sample images which allow you to follow along step-by-step with all the examples from the book. |
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Bonus 3: A printable, pocket-size panorama shooting checklist for you to slip into your camera bag and take with you on your next vacation, to make sure you don't miss a trick. |
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Bonus 4: Free ArcSoft photo software, including ArcSoft RAW Thumbnail Viewer, ArcSoft Video Downloader, ArcSoft Print Creations Free Edition, ArcSoft Photo Book Screen Saver, and ArcSoft MediaImpression Free Edition. |
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Bonus 5: Two of my own high resolution panoramic images, suitable for printing and framing up to six feet wide. |
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Bonus 6: FREE image browser software. |
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