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Lightroom Unable to Megrge

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Paintcowhorse

New Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2021
Messages
9
Lightroom Version Number
10.1.1
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
Using a 90D and a Sigma 8mm lens, tripod and Fanotec, I shot 6, perfectly-level panorama shots on a clear day in Mexico; same aperture, same shutter speed, same focal length, same everything I brought them in to Lroom and tried to merge them into a panorama and received a "4 of 6 images failed to merge". However when I put them through PTGUI, everything was fine. Can anybody help? UPDATE: Of the next 10 sets, all equally shot as above, one successfully merged woth the remainder running between 3 and all 6 unable to be merged. . Anybody?
 
Try PS, but my experience is that with wide angle lenses you will need substantial overlap to be able to merge in LrC.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
If you upload a set that fails to merge to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here, we can see what might be going wrong and perhaps offer workarounds.
 
Thank you all. I’ll post them tomorrow. The odd thing is, or perhaps not because these are my first attempts, they stitch fine in PTGUI. They were all done perfectly level but just in case, I shot another series in my back yard triple-checking everything, and the same thing happened; rejection in LR, success in PT GUI. As for PS, I’ve been fighting against paying for the CC for years happy to do most everything as I have for 20-some years in PS1-CS6. I guess it’s that time!
 
As for PS, I’ve been fighting against paying for the CC for years happy to do most everything as I have for 20-some years in PS1-CS6. I guess it’s that time!
I don't understand. In your first post you state that you are using Classic 10.1.1, which is only available using an Adobe subscription, and that subscription would also include Photoshop....so if you really are using 10.1.1 then there's nothing extra you need to pay for Photoshop, you're already paying for it.

In terms of the stitching issue, the usual advice is to ensure there's at least a third of a frame overlap when shooting the pano. If you've not got that much overlap, try shooting your back garden pano again, this time making sure to get sufficient overlap, then try merging again.
 
Well, see now I didn’t figure that out until just now. I went to order PS and it told me I already had it for $20/month. So I guess I’ll visit Adobe on the desktop tomorrow and see how to download it! As for the overlap, I was figuring with an 8mm lens with 167* aov, 3 exposures would give me 141* of overlap giving me about 47% overlap. So I erred on the side of caution and doubled it to 6 shots @ 60* increments,. Math has never failed me but I’ll try increasing it to 8 @exposures @ 45* increments but I understand that there is such a thing as too much overlap that confuses the algorithm.
 
Using a 90D and a Sigma 8mm lens, tripod and Fanotec,
I think the problem is the extreme distortion of the edges of your captured image. Photo merge attempts to map overlapping edges of images shot with a small FoV lens. Your extreme FoV 8mm lens has distorted the left edge of one overlapping image on the opposite direction from the right edge of the next. Lightroom (or Photoshop for that matter) is not able to map and match edges properly. You would have had better success if you had used a lens with a normal FoV and captures images in a greater density.

Your expectation to photo merge using an 8mm lens is not realistic.
 
What clee01l said. It sounds counter intuitive, but shoot a test pano using an 85 mm lens or longer. You will get amazing detail (and a huge file). This assumes that you are shooting a distant subject. Closer subjects are trickier but possible. Using a wide angle lens is already giving you a panoramic image, with the compromise of edge distortion. Longer lenses are much "squarer" at the left and right edges and thus the software is more able to align the congruent image edges. Wide angle lenses are distorted in the opposite directions at the left and right edges, making it difficult to align a left image #1 with a right image #2.
I shoot a lot of panos and I primarily use lenses 85 to 135 mm (Nikon D850). I have even shot macro panos with micro 105mm. I have tried using 14-24mm but with little success and results that were not satisfactory.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
PTGUI caters for lots of different types of photo merges. Regularly they are used to provide an immersive 3d effect, to allow the user navigate thru the scene as if walking.

My rule of thumb for panos is to use as close to 50mm as possible and then capture as many frames as are required to capture the scene. Sometimes, that means using the camera in portrait mode to get the full scene in the frame.
Initially I used to use wide angle lens for such a scenario, but was always disappointed that the majestic details in the mid to far distance were reduced to much smaller elements in the final image. I use 50 mm because this is very close to the way our eyes perceive distance and the final image will be closer to what you saw. If the panorama happens to be architectural in nature (where verticals are important), I will do everything possible to keep the top of the tripod head perfectly level. This might force me to use a wider focal width, such as 45mm or 40mm. I will stay as close as possible to 50mm to capture the scene. This is sometimes relevant to capturing timberland scenes with lots of vertical tree trunks, etc..

This is no consolation when trying to merge the images you have. Cletus sums up the challenges of edge distortion very well.

If you have a decent overlap between the frames captured, maybe you can pre crop to try and remove the most worst distortion at the frame edges.
 
Thank you, Gnitds. How wonderful it is to receive a response that's informational and educational but also intellectual as well staying clear, concise and on and to the point. With the advent of the internet, I had almost lost hope that people like you existed. Your observation is keene and I'll certainly try and use it using my 50mm to see what happens. Curious that so many recommendations stress the opposite end of the scale arguing that the fisheye works best. Thank you
I think the problem is the extreme distortion of the edges of your captured image. Photo merge attempts to map overlapping edges of images shot with a small FoV lens. Your extreme FoV 8mm lens has distorted the left edge of one overlapping image on the opposite direction from the right edge of the next. Lightroom (or Photoshop for that matter) is not able to map and match edges properly. You would have had better success if you had used a lens with a normal FoV and captures images in a greater density.

Your expectation to photo merge using an 8mm lens is not realistic.
It seems so however, for a beginner such as myself seeing so many arguments on both sides of the coin, getting correct right out of the box is ceertasinly prooving challenging. Thank you for your comment. It certainly makes sense and I'll try it.
What clee01l said. It sounds counter intuitive, but shoot a test pano using an 85 mm lens or longer. You will get amazing detail (and a huge file). This assumes that you are shooting a distant subject. Closer subjects are trickier but possible. Using a wide angle lens is already giving you a panoramic image, with the compromise of edge distortion. Longer lenses are much "squarer" at the left and right edges and thus the software is more able to align the congruent image edges. Wide angle lenses are distorted in the opposite directions at the left and right edges, making it difficult to align a left image #1 with a right image #2.
I shoot a lot of panos and I primarily use lenses 85 to 135 mm (Nikon D850). I have even shot macro panos with micro 105mm. I have tried using 14-24mm but with little success and results that were not satisfactory.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
Another outstanding and understandable response, Cleo and thank you as well. I'm a retiring co-founder and lead counsel at my firm, a real estate, land use and governmental affairs practice in Los Angeles so you can see I better relate to responses such as yours than the litany of factless opinions I've found on the internet thusfar. This is the first congruent group I've discovered and truly appreciate it with the others content to argue with eachother in an endless show of one-upsmanship. That being said, question. If I'm not in need of clear focus at great depth as is the case when I'm shooting outdoor panos of one of our Mexico developments such as the one depicted in the set of photos posted herein above, might the 8mm work in simply wishing to depict a property lot and its surroundings without need for detail beyond a few feet reserving then the 50mm (et al) lenses for interiors of homes that we're showcasing that require detail; and, in shooting the interiors and wishing to make them appear as large as possible, what would the preferred lens be? Thank you all agin. I'm today discovering Photoshop CC and wondering how to fill the empty areas that seemingly always surround the stitched image which, incidentally, PS had no problems assembling right off the bat unlike Lightroom. And again, thank you for your response. Refreshing.
 
I don't understand. In your first post you state that you are using Classic 10.1.1, which is only available using an Adobe subscription, and that subscription would also include Photoshop....so if you really are using 10.1.1 then there's nothing extra you need to pay for Photoshop, you're already paying for it.

In terms of the stitching issue, the usual advice is to ensure there's at least a third of a frame overlap when shooting the pano. If you've not got that much overlap, try shooting your back garden pano again, this time making sure to get sufficient overlap, then try merging again.
Thank you Jim. Found it, installed it and now trying to become as comfortable with it as my old PS.
 
I have imported the images into different layers in Photoshop and manually aligned 2 of the frames which include the post (see 1). I aligned so the post (1) in both frames overlap. One of the frames has 50% opacity so we can see how the frames overlap.

Even though I have aligned around position 1 we can see how far the branches in the shrub in position 2 has moved apart.

Finally, we can see that the stakes in the foreground (3) are leaning in opposite directions. This is the point that Cletus was making.

Also, just a related point. You can see the wide variation of the sky colour. This may be due to the characteristics of the lens, but it may also be due to a polariser filter. Use of polarisers for merging panoramas is a recipe for frustration as the effect of the polariser changes dramatically with the changing direction of each frame.

1617558794415.png
 
If I'm not in need of clear focus at great depth as is the case when I'm shooting outdoor panos of one of our Mexico developments such as the one depicted in the set of photos posted herein above, might the 8mm work in simply wishing to depict a property lot and its surroundings without need for detail beyond a few feet reserving then the 50mm (et al) lenses for interiors of homes that we're showcasing that require detail;
Different lens at different focal length at different price points serve different purposes. Fisheye lens have distortion, which increases dramatically as one gets closer to the edge of the frame. 8mm is getting close to fisheye. Take a picture of a brick wall and check how the nature of bricks change from centre to edge. Architectural photographers will have their favourites, many using tilt/shift to maximise depth of field or other characteristics. The 8 mm may allow you grab a hand held shot which gives you a very good sense of a wide scene, whereas stitching together a series of images requires more time in prep, execution and post processing. Sometimes there is no perfect answer and we have to make the best of the tools we have in our toolbox. A real estate photographer may use a wide angle (say 14 mm) to capture internal rooms and can capture each room in a house in say approx 1 hour. For high end real estate there are specialist photographers who may take a day to set up, use specialised lighting and capture a single room with 100 frames. They may then spend a day or three doing the post processing.

Tools like Lightroom and Photoshop allow us to make a lot of corrections to veritcals, horizontals, but all of these corrections degrade the quality of the detail.

Many people buy the Canon Tilt and Shift lens, not to use the Tilt and Shift functions, but to take advantage of the superb lack of distortion and how easy it is to merge 2 or 3 adjacent frames.
 
All kinds of issues in Photoshop, the most dramatic of which is illustrated in the accompanying photo of a stitched panorama. It's happened both times I tried to use the program. What happened? And again, I feel as though as I should apologize for the truly newbie questions but I won't hoping that most of you, like I in law,, relish the position of mentor to beginners.
 

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It used to be said that doing lens corrections in LR before trying to merge was advisable. I don't know if that's still sound advice. But from all the advice above it sounds like there are pretty extreme distortions from a wide angle lens. So it might be worth a try. Does PT GUI do lens corrections, for example?
 
Been trying new lenses out and 99% of the issues have disappeared so thank you again so much for that. Another one persists though and that's when trying to merge to a panorama, it seems to exclude the two shots up and down. It reads "Unable to merge the photos." and the only thing I can see attributable is that 10 are horizontal shots and for some reason, the two up and down are vertical; that and the fact that the suffixes are different; dng for the 10 and cr3 for the two. Can anyone shed some light on this for me. Thank you again.
 
LrC (and probably PS) won't merge a mix of portrait and landscape images, at least that's my recollection. All one or the other.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
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