Bracketed panorama

From Autopano

1 An Example using Group by Speed
2 Rendering
3 Results

This tutorial describes how a bracketed panorama can be created using Autopano Pro, through the use of the Layer Editor.

After the detection of your panorama, open the Editor window. The Layer Editor is displayed beneath the panorama preview. If it is hidden, you can make it appear by selecting 'Layers' in the View menu.

The Layer Editor lists all images composing the panorama. These images can be grouped by layers, sorted by their focal length, shutter speed, aperture or bracket:

Layer grouping by Aperture is useful for when you have taken your series of photographs using a consistent range of apertures.

Layer grouping by Shutter speed is useful for when you have taken your series of photographs using a consistent range of shutter speeds. This is probably the best grouping method to use if you have used the Auto Exposure Bracketing feature of your camera.

Layer grouping by Bracket is useful for when you have taken your series of photographs with an inconsistent range of aperture and shutter speeds, but a with consistent bracket range such as -2 EV, 0 EV, +2 EV. Be aware that a panorama rendered from photographs taken with inconsistent apertures or shutter speeds is likely to look very strange!

At the rendering stage, each layer will generate a separated output image. Each layer is spatially optimized by using all constraints and all pictures, not only the pictures from the current layer. So if you stack the rendered panoramas, they will align perfectly.

This is an interesting feature because it makes possible to generate mutiple panoramas of the same subject, but with differing exposure settings.

Some suggested applications for this feature are:

You can blend the resulting panoramas together using techniques such as Photoshop masking (for example) or with tools such as TuFuse
You can generate an HDR image by loading each panorama as a seperate exposure into an application such as Photomatix.

An Example using Group by Speed

In our example, let's group the images by speed, by clicking on the 'Group by Speed' button (see image below). Autopano Pro finds 3 different speeds and creates 3 layers.

Note: this editor allows many operations. You can drag and drop images between layers, delete a picture, rename the layer, etc. You can create your own layers and add images into them.

Rendering

Now that we have our 3 layers, let's see the impact on the rendering :

We can see that this panorama will generate 3 files, one per exposure.
That's really great, isn't it ?

In the second screenshot, you can see that if you choose the Photoshop PSD/PSB output and choose 'layers embedded', Autopano Pro will add the images as individual Photoshop layers in all rendered panoramas.