HDR Alignment

[Bsmooth]

I'm now starting to do my HDR's in Photoshop then bring them into photomatix as Tiff's.Since I do a lot of handheld shots,is there a more exact way to align the images in Photoshop?I am specifically using Photoshop CS3.Not large alignments,but small ones to get the aligned as perfect as they can be. Thanks !

[Scottes]

Have you played with the options for Alignment in Photomatix? I just stitched a handheld 7-shot HDR and Photomatix aligned it perfectly.

[i_am_hydrogen]

Try this HDR alignment tool.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/discuss/72157594229411664/

http://www.geocities.com/rnd6statrat/hdr_alignment_tool.html

[Scottes]

Try this HDR alignment tool.
That reminds me... Most decent panoramic programs will align the images for you. Including Hugin, which is free. It might mean a little more work in Photoshop, but it will do the job.

[kirkt]

I'm now starting to do my HDR's in Photoshop then bring them into photomatix as Tiff's.Since I do a lot of handheld shots,is there a more exact way to align the images in Photoshop?I am specifically using Photoshop CS3.Not large alignments,but small ones to get the aligned as perfect as they can be. Thanks !

I'm not sure I am understanding your workflow. When you say your are doing your HDRs in Photoshop, are you saying you are combining your image sequence into an HDR (.hdr, .exr, etc.) file in PSCS3 or are you opening each of the shots you took in your image sequence in PS and then saving them as TIFFs in PS to combine in Photomatix?

Both PS and Photomatix have auto-alignment features that are implemented when you combine your source files into an HDR dataset. It sounds like you have shot a few source images in a sequence, handheld, and you are trying to align them prior to attempting to combine them into an HDR. Are the automated alignment schemes in PS or Photomatix not working for you?

Alignment is especially important if your source images are not RAW, because the HDR program may attempt to reverse engineer the tone curve applied to the image (especially if they are JPEGs) before combination. In order for this process to be successful, the images must be aligned properly.

PSCS3 also has "Auto-align layers" which, if you bring each image in your sequence into a single document as layers, you can have this function align the layers. You can then use the "Scripts" menu to export each layer as a file (TIFF) and then import these TIFFs into your HDR app. You will probably have to manually specify the EV data for each image though, as the EXIF is not carried along in this process.

Hugin and similar apps also do this well. If you are a Mac user, there is an app called "Hydra" which has a point-based alignment system similar to Hugin, etc. built right in, especially suited to handheld HDR construction.

Kirk

[terumi]

I use PS and Photomatix for HDRs and there have been a few times where the alignment functions didn't work the way I needed, in either program. In this case I put each image on it's own layer in PS and reduce the opacity, then manually tweak the spots I need to correct. Then I'd just reduce the image size to get rid of the little bits left over from rotating or whatever.

The images are then copied into their own files and saved as tifs. It sounds like a lot but sometimes that's just what I need to do to get the image I want :)

[Scottes]

It sounds like a lot but sometimes that's just what I need to do to get the image I want :)

I can relate to that. I've done some crazy things to correct some panos that were shot without a pano head.

[shutterbugcrazy]

That reminds me... Most decent panoramic programs will align the images for you. Including Hugin, which is free. It might mean a little more work in Photoshop, but it will do the job.
I seem to get better results using photomerge in my CS4 than with Hugin

[DAUMO]

photomatix