Lightroom Classic CC 7.4 Panorama Stitching Failures

[aandreass]

Hi,

I took 4 RAW pictures with my Panasonic Lumix GX8.

Then I imported the pictures in a completely new created empty catalog in Lightroom Classic CC 7.4:

All 4 pictures are cropped to 16:9 (from 4:3) because I selected this format in the camera:

When I try to stitch these 4 pictures to a panorama, Lightroom fails in all 3 modes:

- Spherical: Missing lower part

- Cylindrical: Missing lower part

- Perspective: Partly missing lower part

How can this issue be resolved?

Thanks.

Andreas

[JP Hess]

In my opinion, Lightroom didn't fail. You select auto crop and take what you get. There's always going be some gaps no matter how careful you align the camera. That's what the auto crop feature is for. And sometimes the perspective mode simply isn't appropriate.

[Rob_Cullen]

And- Your image is ideally suited to use the "Boundary Warp" slider.

It works similar to 'Content Aware Fill' in Photoshop.

Just push it across to 100-

I also suggest to not crop the images before the Panorama merge. Merge the full frames first then do any crop of the Panorama.

[aandreass]

Thank you very much for your comments.

I still think Lightroom fails. Please find the same images I imported via CameraRaw (taking the whole pictures, not cropped to 16:9, like Lightroom did) and stitched them with PhotoMerge in Photoshop CC:

It's perfectly aligned and stitched.

Unfortunately I cannot use Photoshop CC, because then I loose the RAW information of the images.

This is important because I want to adjust the picture parameters (e.g. highlights, shadows) after it was stitched for a better result.

Any other ideas?

Thank you very much.

Andreas

[Rob_Cullen]

Please explain what you mean by "Lightroom Fails".

I do not see failure in any of your screen clips.

I see slight variances in the alignment of the image borders, in both Lightroom AND Photoshop.

The 'Transparent' areas that are missing image data can be fixed in both programs by a suitable crop of the panorama file, or-

Lightroom offers the "Boundary warp" to 'expand' the image out to the edges,

Photoshop can use "Content Aware Fill" to (intelligently?) fill the blank areas with pixel data.

[aandreass]

Hi WobertC,

Please compare the last picture of my original post (Lightroom Classic CC 'Perspective' stitching method) against the picture of my last post (Photoshop CC automatic stitching method).

Both panoramas are perfectly stitched.  No issue.

But the Lightroom panorama has white empty/blank areas left and right, which should be filled with the content of the source pictures. It looks like Lightroom ist cutting off the lower part of some pictures.

I hope this describes the 'failure' a little bit better.

Thank you very much.

[JP Hess]

I don't know what results you are accustomed to getting from stitching in Lightroom. I usually don't use the Perspective option very often. I have done quite a number of panoramic images with as many as 24 images. If my results were as "filled" as yours are I would feel like I had a successful stitching. I would either use the auto crop or boundary warp feature to complete the process and move on. Personally, from what you have illustrated, I don't believe there is anything to fix in the Lightroom panorama feature. Of course there are others who will disagree and feel that Hugin (which is a third-party standalone panorama creating software) is far superior. But I have never tried it.

[aandreass]

Hi JimHess,

Thank you very much for your comments.

What I try to point out is that Lightroom stitching fails by not taking all pixel information available in the pictures (by 'cutting off' the lower area of some pictures).

This results in blank/white areas in the panorama - without any need, as the pixel information is available.

The fact that Photoshop takes all the picture information and produces panoramas without blank/white areas leads me to the conclusion that the Lightroom panorama feature does not work correctly.

I've also stitched a lot of panoramas and used a lot of different tools over time.

The reason for me to use Lightroom is that it is the first tool which integrates the panorama feature with RAW editing, which enables me to edit the stitched panorama, without the need to edit the individual pictures before stitching, which sometimes is very hard. So, I really like the Lightroom panorama feature.

Please see my post as a request to improve the Lightroom panorama feature to become an even more powerful and great tool than it already is.

Best regards.

[Conrad C]

I see where the parts of the original files are missing in the Lightroom stitch. That should not happen. A Lightroom panorama should be the total area of all images, with unevenness due to where one image does not extend as far as another. That's not what's happening here. Parts of images should not simply be cut off and missing; it's very obvious that content is completely missing under the closest temple, for instance.

I don't have an explanation for why it's happening. However, I shoot panoramas with a Panasonic G85 and have seen cases where Lightroom does not produce a correct result, where Photoshop merges them properly. I have wondered whether there might be a problem specific to Lightroom and Panasonic, but I haven't explored it enough to write it up yet.

aandreass  wrote

I've also stitched a lot of panoramas and used a lot of different tools over time.

The reason for me to use Lightroom is that it is the first tool which integrates the panorama feature with RAW editing, which enables me to edit the stitched panorama, without the need to edit the individual pictures before stitching, which sometimes is very hard. So, I really like the Lightroom panorama feature.

You already have another tool that can produce a DNG from raw files: Adobe Camera Raw, which has its own panorama merge tool and produces a DNG file like Lightroom does, so that you can correct the finished panorama using the raw controls. If you haven't tried it already, try merging the same images using Camera Raw (not Photoshop), and see if the result is closer to Lightroom or Photoshop.

aandreass  wrote

Please see my post as a request to improve the Lightroom panorama feature to become an even more powerful and great tool than it already is.

For the best possible response you should report this at the official Photoshop Feedback site. There are a number of feature requests and bug reports filed there about Lightroom panoramas. One that seemed similar to this one was this report:

Lightroom: Panorama crops pictures | Photoshop Family Customer Community

If that doesn't seem close enough for you to add a comment or vote to that one, you could start another.

[Todd Shaner · Accepted solution]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Conrad+C  wrote

For the best possible response you should report this at the official Photoshop Feedback site. There are a number of feature requests and bug reports filed there about Lightroom panoramas. One that seemed similar to this one was this report:

Lightroom: Panorama crops pictures | Photoshop Family Customer Community

Yes, it appears to be the same issue. At the above report the images were cropped in-camera to 16:9. LR has the capability to remove the in-camera crop using the Crop tool, but Photo Merge> Panorama apparently only uses the uncropped image data in the upper part of the image files. The best advice for now is to not use in-camera crop for panoramas.

[aandreass]

Hi Todd,

Yes, it seems to be exactly the same issue. If I use TIFF files in Lightroom it is working (please see my previous post).

It is also true that my images were cropped in-camera to 16:9, as well.

Unfortunately removing the crop afterwards in Lightroom or Camera Raw doesn't help.

Also removing the crop and saving as DNG doesn't work.

Do you know about a possibility to remove the cropping from the RAW files or DNG, like it never was cropped in-camera? Maybe this could work.

As stated in my previous post, I think the only thing I can do at the moment is to hope that Adobe can fix this issue, soon.

Thank you very much for looking into this issue and your support!

Best regards.

[Todd Shaner]

aandreass  wrote

Do you know about a possibility to remove the cropping from the RAW files or DNG, like it never was cropped in-camera? Maybe this could work.

Adobe created a plugin years ago called 'DNG Recover Edge' for that very purpose. It's now built-in to the newer versions of LR starting with 6.0 (I think), so it shouldn't be needed any longer. I downloaded and installed it, converted the raw files in the above example to DNG format using the plugin, removed the crop using the LR Crop tool, and then created a panorama using those files inside LR. Unfortunately, the results are identical to using the raw files with the bottom 16:9 crop area of the last file not showing in the panorama. The original 16:9 crop file metadata is still showing in the plugin converted DNG, which is what appears to trip-up LR's Photomerge to Panorama.

In the above example I used Olympus ORF raw files. It's possible the plugin may work with your Panasonic RW2 raw files and create a proper panorama with the converted DNGs. Watch the video first.

Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom | Adobe Labs

Video on how to use it:

DNG Recover Edges

[aandreass]

Hi Todd,

I installed the DNG Recover Edges plugin and tried it with DNG files, converted from my RW2 files.

Unfortunately the tool seems to have no effect. The issue still is present using the fixed DNG files to create a panorama.

I replied to the post in the official Photoshop Feedback forum and confirmed the issue:

Lightroom: Panorama crops pictures | Photoshop Family Customer Community

I tried to find another RAW editor, able to remove the crop and export it to DNG.

But SilkyPix Developer Studio SE, Olympus Viewer 3, RawTherapee, and Darktable don't have the ability to export DNG.

As there seems to be no workaround I need to wait until Adobe fixed this issue...

But as the first post about this issue was 1 year ago, I doubt Adobe will fix it soon - but hope dies last

Thank you very much for your great support.

[Todd Shaner]

I was afraid that would be the case. At least we've revived the one-year old post. Make sure to add your 'Me To' vote at that post. Hopefully Adobe employee Rikk Flohr will reply and query the LR engineering team. It shouldn't be difficult to correct!

[aandreass]

Hi Conrad C,

Thank you very much for looking into this issue and your great suggestion to use Adobe Camera Raw as the stitching tool and import the panorama DNG to Lightroom, which I really thought and hoped could be the workaround.

So I opened the RAW files in Camera Raw:

Then I removed the crop from all pictures via the crop tool:

Unfortunately I received the same result as in Lightroom:

Just to be sure I again opened the pictures in Photoshop and the panorama was created, correctly:

I also tried to save the 'uncropped' RAW files in DNG, re-open in Camera Raw and stitch, but this didn't worked as well...

I looked into the report you found and yes, it seems to be exactly the same issue. If I use TIFF files in Lightroom, it is also working:

I think the only thing I can do at the moment is to hope that Adobe can fix this issue, soon.

Again, thank you very much for your great support, I really appreciate it!

Best regards.

[Conrad C]

aandreass  wrote

Hi Conrad C,

Thank you very much for looking into this issue and your great suggestion to use Adobe Camera Raw as the stitching tool and import the panorama DNG to Lightroom, which I really thought and hoped could be the workaround...Unfortunately I received the same result as in Lightroom.

Sorry to hear that. I'm not too surprised. I suggested trying Camera Raw even though I suspected you would get the same result, because I think Lightroom and Camera Raw are using the same raw-based panorama merge code. Which is different than the Photoshop panorama merge code.

aandreass  wrote

Again, thank you very much for your great support, I really appreciate it!

You're welcome. I hope the problem can be fixed soon too.

[Rob_Cullen]

My thoughts agree with Jim Hess.

Have you tried resetting the crop on each image so that Lightroom sees the 'Full' 4:3 raw image?

[aandreass]

Hi WobertC,

Yes, I reset the crop as well.

Actually it does not make a difference to the Panorama feature, how the image is cropped... always the same result.

Thank you for your suggestion.