Weekly Photo Challenge - Low Light

**akritic** · Nov 7, 2008 07:16

I am going to risk sounding dumb, but I never knew that tool existed! (I'm using CS3, so a fairly up to date copy) I always thought one would just open a large document and meld them together manually...

Saying that, I've used the 'Merge to HD' function in photoshop to less than brilliant results, so perhaps there's always more than one way to skin a cat.

**adesignrsa** · Nov 7, 2008 07:20

It does a majority of the work. What I do is apply a mask to the layers that aren't matching up nicely and use a largeish brush to "erase" the side of the offending layer. It doesn't always work perfectly, but with enough elbow grease you can get it to your liking.

**Rubble** · Nov 7, 2008 11:42

I took a daylight version as well:

The night version was a 15 second exposure; my camera has a panorama setting which I used to align the images. It may also create the panorama image automaticaly but I would need to read the instructions for that !

Canons come with a panorama program which is quite basic; if you look around the web there are other programs that just do that.
I did this one with ImageMagick and my old Fuji camera:

The code:

PHP Code:


<?php
// Original image manipulation
exec("convert 17.jpg -resize x380 -rotate \"-6\" 17.png ");
exec("convert 16.jpg -resize 500x500 16.png ");
exec("convert 15.jpg -resize x370 15.png ");
exec("convert 14.jpg -resize x365 14.png ");
// Combining the images
exec("convert -size 1700x500 xc:white 17.png -geometry +0+0 -composite 16.png -geometry +395-19 -composite 15.png -geometry +780-35 -composite 14.png -geometry +1130-82 -composite panorama11.jpg"); 
//Cropping and resizing the final image
exec("convert panorama11.jpg -crop 1220x269+300+15 panorama12.jpg"); 
?>

The original images aligned before the crop:

One thing I have noticed is that you lose a lot of the top and bottom of the photo when cropping. Next time I want to try two other things - Zoom out more so you have more forground and background you can crop off and take the photos in portrate mode. Again this will give you more you can crop off but you need to stich more photos together.

**Rubble** · Nov 7, 2008 12:03

I knew there was some interesting software somewhere in my mind - http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ - It will distort the images as well to fit better.

**asp_funda** · Nov 7, 2008 12:21

@WarpNacelle: Thats very well taken!

Originally Posted by armchaircritic

Saying that, I've used the 'Merge to HD' function in photoshop to less than brilliant results, so perhaps there's always more than one way to skin a cat.

Well, the HD merge tool in Photoshop is kinda lame, atleast thats what I've seen. The Photomatix gives much better results.

**Will_DR** · Nov 11, 2008 12:54

Taken just after sunset...

**adesignrsa** · Nov 12, 2008 02:26

Will_DR That is a really awesome shot. How much ps was involved. Not accusing, just asking

I love the light on the pier.

**Will_DR** · Nov 12, 2008 03:26

Thanks, adesignrsa. There's no shame in using a bit of Photoshop; it's an essential part of the workflow!

This particular image is a tone mapped blend of 3 fairly long exposures with some work in Photoshop, but not a great deal.

**adesignrsa** · Nov 12, 2008 05:11

I figured you might have done that. Nice work.

Sure, no problem using photoshop.

**ArtCactus** · Nov 28, 2008 09:31

nice theme for photo challenge, here is some of mine photos:

I was in the lake in mountains this summer and we've catch a lot of crayfishes, this was awesome night

cold beer, mountains and crayfishes

and here is another photo, night in the city, traffic...