Lightroom Photomerge

Trying to merge 6 raw files into 1 large image. I have done similar successfully in the past. The source files are Canon raw - 20 mp. However, the merged file comes out very small - 1048 on the long side. A bit of research indicates that this may be some sort of Adobe memory problem. I get the same result in ACR and Photoshop. And I tried making the sources files JPGs and then merging those - thinking small files would help - but got the same result.

I cannot believe Adobe professional photo software cannot merge 6 raw files. Has anyone experienced this? Any solutions?

Thanks

Do you have some some wrong value applied to an export setting? Image sizing (Resize to fit)? You may need to open the sub-dialogs to find it.

No - did not have the resize option clicked. Was set to export full-size. Thanks though.

What is the spec of your machine?

Do you have "use graphics processor" enabled? If so try deselecting it.
Also what is your cache setting?

What did you mean by "merge?" Were you trying to create a panorama? If so, I find that a free Microsoft program called Image Composite Editor (ICE) works for me. I also suggest using identical manual exposures for each and processing each from RAW to jpg using your own favorite raw converter,which should also correct for vignetting and/or light fall-off at the corners. Then open ICE and drag the JPG's into it in roughly the position you want them. (I don't have ICE on the computer I am using to write this, and don't remember the exact details on what to do next.)

Dan - at work now. I'll check on these and let you know - thanks.

I ended up using ICE and that's exactly what I did and worked fine. Just bugs me that Lightroom does this when it shouldn't. I also discovered that if I edit a RAW file and save it as a JPG it works fine. But if I save it as a DNG file, it resizes to 1024. Clearly, this is not workable and I need to fix it.

After some research and lots of asking questions all over - I found the solution. I never would have figured this out on my own - it is perplexing. Sharing here in case it proves useful to others.

Lightroom did in fact create a big panorama - loading the image in Lightroom and then looking at the metadata confirmed this. The image I saw on my hard drive was the embedded preview - which was 1024 px - and was a .dng file. I had to take the extra step of exporting the image that Lightroom created to my hard drive as a jpg. THAT image was big like you would expect.

I'm happy now that I know but that still leaves 2 questions. Why does Lightroom:

1. require you to take an additional step (exporting the image when it is already created) Most panorama programs - such as Microsoft ICE - do not require this.


2. Place the embedded preview in your hard drive folder containing the source files. Lightroom makes embedded previews all the time and those are never places in the same folder.

Not sure I'll get answers - but in case.

Thanks to all who responded.

tspencer1 wrote in post #18823992
Why does Lightroom:

1. require you to take an additional step (exporting the image when it is already created) Most panorama programs - such as Microsoft ICE - do not require this.

I can't actually duplicate your issue here. LR works perfectly for me. I select 6 images to merge to panorama and LR creates a large DNG which appears in the LR library next to the source images ready to be edited (or opened in PS/ACR).

That isn't the embedded preview, it is the actual pano DNG. It appears that windows is misidentifying it and listing its dimensions of those of the embedded JPG preview. If you select to open that file in Photoshop you will see that it is indeed the full size DNG file.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #18824228
I can't actually duplicate your issue here. LR works perfectly for me. I select 6 images to merge to panorama and LR creates a large DNG which appears in the LR library next to the source images ready to be edited (or opened in PS/ACR).

That isn't the embedded preview, it is the actual pano DNG. It appears that windows is misidentifying it and listing its dimensions of those of the embedded JPG preview. If you select to open that file in Photoshop you will see that it is indeed the full size DNG file.

Dan - as far as the embedded preview - for me - Windows does identify this DNG file as 1024. And if I open it with a different program (non-Adobe), it realy is 1024 px. And slightly blurry. So it def is not the large pano. Only if I export as a new file can I get a large one. It's weird that we get different results.

In your 1st pgh you say you get a large pano DNG file in your LR library. Is this the same location as your source files? For me the small DNG gets stored in the folder with the source files.

tspencer1 wrote in post #18824237
Dan - as far as the embedded preview - for me - Windows does identify this DNG file as 1024. And if I open it with a different program (non-Adobe), it realy is 1024 px. And slightly blurry. So it def is not the large pano.

That would depend on what software you open it in. If it isn't capable of opening/editing RAW/DNGs then it will panic and just open the preview JPG. look again - mouse over the preview in explorer. The pixel dimensions are shown as small but what is the file size listed as. Mine is 1024 x 256 pixels but 189 MB! Open it in PS, not some other package and you will see it is the full size pano.

Dan - you are correct. The file is huge - 167 MB. And when I open it in Lightroom, it is indeed huge. Thanks. Weird! But now I understand.

Thanks for reporting back.