pan shot of table mountain, what do you think?

This is after hours and hours of me merging about 20 pictures together to make it one

The original is much, much larger, I just shrunk it down

I'm not very good at post processing, and am wondering what the advice out there is to improve this photo. I want to get it printed off, and will frame it

Basically, how would I go about making it all one shade...the middle is a bit lighter than the outside...things like that...still think it looks a bit washed out....

Cheers and thanks for all the help!

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Right off just doing an adjustment in curves or levels (even an auto adjustment will work wonders) will improve the contrast dramatically.

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hmm that looks good...but then it still does go dark-light-dark from left to right...any ideas on how to fix that?

Why did it take you hours, what software?

i used canon photostitch to meld them together

but then i had to go and manually with GIMP fix all of the waves. since they were moving none of them matched up, so I had to make all of the water match

i think i did an ok job

What was your overlap between shots?

And what focal length did you take this at? I'm wondering because you said that it's 20 images. That seems like a lot of images for a panorama of this size. Even with 50% overlap, the dimensions are 7 images long. Did you take 3 rows of 7?

Lyzic wrote in post #5015140
hmm that looks good...but then it still does go dark-light-dark from left to right...any ideas on how to fix that?

Are you shooting manual? You don't want to change any settings (ISO, Tv, Av) between shots. If you're refering to the dark lines where the images were stitched together, that is usually caused by not having enough overlap between images. This does not appear to be the case however.

I would suspect that 1/3rd in from the left you changed the exposure. There seems to be two distinct exposure levels. If I had to guess, it would be that the exposure got compensated when you either entered (or exited) the frames that included the foreground. Set your exposure in manual mode, and don't change it.

sorry i exaggerated, i just counted up my source pictures and there are 14, not 20

i took them a couple months ago on my trip...so i won't be able to go back and redo them

i shot them on tv at 1/160 which my camera was set to due to some animal action shots i had just taken. they are taken between f11 and f13 with iso 100

Right.

So being in Tv mode, combined with (I'm guessing because of the change in exposure) Evaluative Metering, the camera recalculated the exposure when you hit the grass in the foreground.

I can only make deductions based on the effects shown in the image, and the information you gave me without exif.

How to correct the look? Since ISO remained constant, and Tv remained constant your only exposure variable was the Av. Going from f/11 to f/13 is reducing the exposure by 1/2 a stop. I would try increasing the exposure of the original images taken at f/13 by +0.5 and try again. Otherwise you can try blending a white to transparent graduated filter from left to right in the area you require it until you get a look that is acceptable.

Only posting this so the OP can see the breaks......too much contrast between the three sets.

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Lyzic wrote in post #5015140
hmm that looks good...but then it still does go dark-light-dark from left to right...any ideas on how to fix that?

Try some dodging and burning. I used a soft brush at 3% with each tool to try to equalize the image at the left most border. This was just a 5 minute manipulation to show you what could be done.

Kevin

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my biggest problem with the photo is that the horizon isn't straight. the top of the table might be with the top edge but that's not what kills the photo. it looks like the world is leaning to the left.

theflyingkiwi wrote in post #5031282
my biggest problem with the photo is that the horizon isn't straight. the top of the table might be with the top edge but that's not what kills the photo. it looks like the world is leaning to the left.

I had played with leveling his image, however being such a wide and short image the resulting crop cuts out a large chunk of the foreground... :

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You do lose alot of foreground, but I agree with theflyingkiwi... the tilted horizon makes it look like the water is going to spill out the side and ruins it for me, also. I like it much better with the horizon straightened. Missing the foreground doesn't matter nearly as much.

You can get a little spirit level that fits into your flash shoe for next to nothing, that should help with keeping the horizon level. I'm after one myself.