Trying to correct for distortion in a large image

[loraksus]

I have this panorama I'm currently editing. I've been messing around, trying to get it to "straighten" for a while now, but can't seem to get it right. I'm not sure if it's the terrain or it was introduced during the merging process or... It seems like the angle changes near the right hand side too (or is that just the peninsula appearing to magnify the effect?)
I don't think it was a screwed up tripod (since it isn't "drooping").
It originally was a ~240 degree panorama (I cropped out the right hand side since it was... not much except for dark trees), so that may be a cause of it.

Figure I'd have a breather, toss it up here and have someone else take a look at it.
Is the distortion even annoying enough to merit correction?
Any recommendations on an app / fix? The Photoshop filter I'm using hasn't been giving me any good results.

"Thumbnail"
http://vehiclehitech.com/pictures/!%...0rev1%2012.jpg

A bit bigger (about 3.7mb)
http://vehiclehitech.com/pictures/!%20Photography/Panorama/Stanley%20Park%20rev1%2033.jpg

Doesn't help that the original is 35,000 pixels wide either. Photoshop runs a bit slow with large files

BTW.. this is Stanley Park in Vancouver at 3AM, 12 30 sec exposures f/8, ISO 100, Canon XTI.
Don't recall what lens it was... Either the "EF 28-135 f/3.5-f/5.6 non IS" or the EF 50mm f/1.8 prime. Some fairly bad flare issues, so I think it was probably the 28-135

Thanks in advance

[daveor]

Not sure the right side is drooping,, the left side does the same, I think it might just be the perspective. Have you tried the different settings in ps? DAve

[loraksus]

Originally Posted by daveor

Not sure the right side is drooping,, the left side does the same, I think it might just be the perspective. Have you tried the different settings in ps? DAve

Messed with it a bit more today... Still no luck. The shoreline is curved, I think that might be causing some of the distortion.

[Jacco]

It almost looks like it's the earth's curvature. Only it would be too strong a curvature for the earth. The moon, because of it's much smaller size, might exhibit that much curvature.
I have the impression your camera on its tripod did not move in a straight horizontal line from one exposure to the next (of the 19).

[daveor]

I played with the small pic a bit. Not sure if it what you want or not. To me it looks natural, but you seem to think that the shoreline should be level. I was able to level it some. Will post my try if you want, DAve

[w7apd]

Looks like the tripod wasn't level. The camera was aimed upward in the middle of the pano, with the result that it was tilted sideways a little at each end.

[loraksus]

Originally Posted by daveor

I played with the small pic a bit. Not sure if it what you want or not. To me it looks natural, but you seem to think that the shoreline should be level. I was able to level it some. Will post my try if you want, DAve

Sure, by all means

If the tripod wasn't level, you'd end up with a slant (not an arc). Thing is, I can't adjust my tripod to create an arc - it's locked into one vertical position.
Still not sure what happened with this one.
Might redo the panorama again, maybe the joining process screwed it up somehow.

[daveor]

Not sure if this is what you want,, I used photoshop to try and straighten the shoreline, Not sure how this will look,, tried to upload a larger pic, but says I was limited to 1024x1000, DAve

[after]

Here's what I did... pretty much like daveor... what I did was choose select/all, go to edit/free transform. Right click and choose warp, then I warped it to look straight'ish (by warping the horizontal lines... etc)... there were areas that were affected by the warp (a little at the bottom & right side)... I cloned in and replaced (the right side was bowed some, and the bottom slanted a little). Best thing is that it retained your original image aspect/view. It probably needs to be straightened some more... but now that you know how I approached it... you can work on it, and get it exactly how YOU want it

[loraksus]

Great Now I feel like a complete and total noob in photoshop. I didn't know free transform has that ability and was dicking around with filters, etc.
My method usually works, but I guess it crapped out because the image was so wide.
Oh man... knowing this would of have saved me so much time in the past..

[edit - meant to post this before heading to banff, whoops - thanks to both of you - sorry for the delay in responding... I'll toss up a new version once I go through my banff pics )

[pommie]

Originally Posted by loraksus

Sure, by all means

If the tripod wasn't level, you'd end up with a slant (not an arc). Thing is, I can't adjust my tripod to create an arc - it's locked into one vertical position.
Still not sure what happened with this one.
Might redo the panorama again, maybe the joining process screwed it up somehow.

That would depend on where the 'high' side is, if the unevenness is from say, left to right, then yes a slope, but if the highest part is at the front then you would be even straight ahead and sloping to both the left and right.
It makes it easier to understand if you think of the unevenness as 45 degree's rather than less than one degree.

Cheers David

[Jacco]

After's rendition is excellent. And it made me notice what I consider the most interesting thing in this pano: the mountains that are still very subtly lit by the very last rays of the sun. Nice!

[loraksus]

Originally Posted by Jacco

After's rendition is excellent. And it made me notice what I consider the most interesting thing in this pano: the mountains that are still very subtly lit by the very last rays of the sun. Nice!

Actually, this was taken after midnight. It's the lights of the city lighting up the snow on the mountains over 30 sec.

It is a nice touch, but kind of a mixed blessing - DXO tweaked levels so that detail is pulled out. Bloody noisy though - the "large" here is 33% of the source image and noise is a bit annoying at 1/3rd the res
It also introduced some artifacts that are annoying - for example, the extreme left of the image has a cluster of trees. You'll see "square blocks" of "not quite pure black" - these defects are also in other parts of the image, but are extremely obvious there.

I think I'm going to put this one down for a bit... Have a few other more simple panos I'd like to get out (my "done but photoshop needed" folder is ~75gb at this point) Some of the daylight stuff is much easier and only needs a simple crop. Here I'll be dicking around with lens flares and those damn blocks. I'd like to use HDR on an image like this, but none of my HDR attempts have turned out to be worth a damn.

The last few weeks have been crazy - trips to the mountains around here, Seattle. Portland, Columbia River / Gorge, Oregon Coast, Banff / Lake Louise, Rocky Mountains and then a week or so of camping 'round here and now finally unpacking / sorting.
*whew*

[Jacco]

Originally Posted by loraksus

I'd like to use HDR

If you've shot in RAW you can.

[after]

Originally Posted by loraksus

It also introduced some artifacts that are annoying - for example, the extreme left of the image has a cluster of trees. You'll see "square blocks" of "not quite pure black" - these defects are also in other parts of the image, but are extremely obvious there.

For this type of thing, try just go into the burn tool, choose for range: highlights, and it should burn just the lighter portions of the "block look", you might also try going to midtones range too... but it should make the trees darker and more silhuetted... which should improve that part that is most obvious. Or you can also try going into image/adjustments/variations after selecting that area, and mess around with darkening the highlights, etc. there. Seeing square blocks though sounds more like a resolution issue (not grain/artifact from altering color/contrast/exposure type settings). I would go back to the originals, and redo everything again, and do everything in one take & save... Make sure when you crop - you aren't cropping bigger than the original file size (resolution)... and that you only save once (or twice)... Remember saving jpg files over & over - especially if you keep trying to crop in, will degrade the resolution quality quick. I wouldn't mind working on it for you if you wanted to send over the original files... It might take me awhile to work out the stitching (as I assume that is how you are getting the pano - since I haven't done that sort of thing in a while), but I am definately willing to work on it, ,and send you the best I can get out of it.