Fixing AWB for a panoramic

[U-Man]

To preserve the continuity of the ‘On the Farm’ thread, I moved over here.

http://photos.imageevent.com/ulle17/fark/Peoria-Pano.jpg

A friend of mine does some work for the city of Peoria and asked if she could use this pic for a banner at a trade show. I’d get my name on it and that’s cool. No cash – but that’s OK. I just do this stuff for fun.

I did this pano before I learned about the auto-white balance on my Canon. I don’t think it jumps off of the pic, but my eye is immediately drawn to the color shifts in the sky. I smudged them in PS with some success but they’re still there. It bugs me. And if a bunch of people are going to see it (with my name on it) I’d like to make it perfect. How hard is it to color match them and then re-stitch into a pano? What is the easiest way to do it? Uuuuuh, I’m red-green color deficient. I may need to get my wife’s help.

soosh wrote – Did you shoot in RAW?

Use MS Paint or something and circle where you see the worst shifts. I think you’ll probably have to try to isolate the sky and use either the channel mixer to adjust the color or maybe use an adjustment layer to add some color where you think it’s deficient. I honestly don’t think it needs adjusting. I see one spot where you could maybe use the healing brush to cover up what looks like a light seam right over the furthest two bridge trestles.

And if you’re not getting paid, I would specify that they only use it for the one time use. Otherwise they may think they have the rights to it for whenever they want.

[U-Man]

soosh, yeah I shot those using JPEG/RAW. So I have both. I can’t get CS2 to open the RAW pics. I believe there is a patch out there somewhere that allows photoshop to work with RAW from a Canon but I haven’t found it. I have never used the Canon software. Would it help?

I noticed your comment that you don’t think it needs adjusting. Anybody else want to chime in? Am I just focused on it because I know it is there? Would the average Joe not even notice?

[soosh]

the Canon Digital Photographer Pro software does a good job with RAW conversion, and even better, you can register a particular setting or set of settings (called a “recipe” in Canon’s lingo) and apply it to other photos. Try using the Color Temperature slider on white balance, which is pretty much infinitely adjustable for color.

If you don’t have the original discs that came with your camera and don’t have DPP installed, you can download the “update” from canon’s website, which is really a full install that looks for a few registry settings. Just do the following before installing and you can install from the update:

1. Open Notepad
2. Paste in the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECanonEOS Utility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECanonDPP]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECanonZoomBrowser EX]

3. Save the file as Canon.reg
4. Double-Click the file and answer Yes when asked if you want to add the information to the registry.

[RcMacStudent]

U-Man Here’s the link to that CS2 patch you need for the RAW editing: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3587

[U-Man]

You guys are cool. Thanks. But it is 1:51 AM here and I have to get up at 7. I’ll try this stuff tomorrow night.

/going to the Bears – Lions game tomorrow. I hope we don’t give them their first win.

[olavf]

soosh, yeah I shot those using JPEG/RAW. So I have both. I can’t get CS2 to open the RAW pics. I believe there is a patch out there somewhere that allows photoshop to work with RAW from a Canon but I haven’t found it. I have never used the Canon software. Would it help?

I noticed your comment that you don’t think it needs adjusting. Anybody else want to chime in? Am I just focused on it because I know it is there? Would the average Joe not even notice?

I’m having a hard time seeing them personally, but maybe I’m just getting sucked in by the awesomeness of the shot.

I can’t help you with CS2 – I use the Canon tools for most of my post-processing and a little re-sizing, CCmark, etc in GIMP personally, but I found the Photostitch tool that comes in the Canon bundle does a pretty darned good job (learned this from a recent contest 😉

[RcMacStudent]

Most of them get hidden in the sunset, there’s only a couple that stand out to me. See them here. Also, I wouldn’t mind if you cropped out the tree leaves on the far right hand side. 😀

[U-Man]

There’s a couple more to the left as well. The thing that I notice most is the change in color of the clouds. I showed it to a few people at work and they didn’t really notice anything. I’m hypersentsitive to them because they were way more obvious before I did a little PS work.

/still haven’t found the time to re-do it.

Hey RacMac, thanks for the link. I downloaded and unzipped the file but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Any suggestions?

I plan on loading up the Canon software to see what it is like.

Why am I here when I still have 1-2 hours of work to do before bed? ….because this is way more fun.

[soosh]

I think I agree about the tree leaves. I’d probably use the healing tool to get rid of them.

[RcMacStudent]

Sure, got to the folder on your computer

C:/Program Files/Common Files/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CS2/File Formats

You should create a new folder in the “File Formats” folder, it doesn’t matter what you call it. Move the old “Camera Raw.8bi” file into the new folder and copy the downloaded “Camera Raw.8bi” into the “File Formats” folder. It should work now.

Let me know how it works for you.

[U-Man]

I think I agree about the tree leaves. I’d probably use the healing tool to get rid of them.

I agree. I had them in there for perspective but they are a distraction.

[U-Man]

Let me know how it works for you.

No go. I’m beginning to feel rather n00bish.

[RcMacStudent]

Very odd. If you’ll tell me your operating system and CS2 version number I’ll put in a couple minutes and see if I can find any quick fixes.

[U-Man]

Verrrrry interesting. I decided to move the old RAW plugin completely out of PS and put the new 3.7 in that folder all by itself. I then tried to open a RAW photo that I selected randomly. It opened just fine and I patted myself on the back for being so clever. However, I then tried to open one I wanted to work with. Didn’t work. I have both the 20D and a 40D. The 20D pic worked. The 40D didn’t.

Any ideas?

[U-Man]

Very odd. If you’ll tell me your operating system and CS2 version number I’ll put in a couple minutes and see if I can find any quick fixes.

Oh yeah. Windows XP SP3. Photoshop version 9.0.2

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