RAW adjustments before Pano Stitching/Focus Stacking, etc.: Do you do it? Are there things to avoid doing in RAW that might blow stitching/stacking?

cayenne

CR Pro
Mar 28, 2012
2,868
796
Hello all,

Right now I'm working with some series of shots for panoramic stitching, but I've had the same questions for focus stacking and other stacking things (like median to get rid of people and other moving things in a composition)...does doing adjustments across the individual images mess up stitching or stacking software and the quality of the end result?

I've played with maybe doing things like raising exposure, sharpness, colors...maybe any common RAW edit, let's say in Capture One, but could be any RAW editor....and applying the changes to all the images the same.

I might even on individual images, spot heal dust spots and the like...but I try to do what I can to the image while I have it in RAW as that I feel I have the most leeway and control there.

I export out to TIFF and send to a tool like Affinity Photo.

With panoramic stitching...for the most part I don't think it causes any problems...but I have the feeling I've seen problems in focus stacking.

What do ya'll do with your workflows.

Do you just stitch/stack your images as out of camera and then bring back the resultant non-RAW file and do your adjustments there?

Or, do you do RAW edits and then send to pixel tools to stitch./stack and then do any adjustments afterwards in the same pixel tool or send it back to the RAW editor for cataloging and changes there?

Either way...why or why not?

Do any RAW edits hurt the pixel editors work? Some worse than others.

I've thought about this with adjustments that might cause halos....sending those images over might compound the image in a stack, right?

Any other things like this?

Thanks in advance,

cayenne
 

Valvebounce

CR Pro
Apr 3, 2013
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450
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Isle of Wight
Hi Cayenne.
I usually just do the lens correction and exposure and then send to Affinity Photo for stitching.
I did a hand held long lens stitch of a cathedral the other day and as well as the usual, I straightened the horizon on all the shots, considering the 7DII has a viewfinder level I made a real bloody mess of the levels! o_O :ROFLMAO:
Well when I sent those straightened shots to Affinity Photo what I got back was some sort of modern art, it was completely unintelligible! I sent the shots without straightening and I got a straight cathedral back! :)
 
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cayenne

CR Pro
Mar 28, 2012
2,868
796
do you do the geometric distortion correction -- or just exposure, vignette & chromatic aberration?
Well, that's what I'm experimenting with.

If I have lens corrections, I apply those to all images....and then anything else. I then paused and wondered if anything I did would mess up the stitching and stacking algorithms of the pixel editor software.

I'm wondering if some things mess with it and others don't......I'd rather do as much as I can in RAW.
 
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