Putting the right frame in the middle of my panorama

[geoffl18657010]

HI All,

I made a 360-degree panorama (made of 12 verticle photographs) of a Cathedral. I want to place the altar in the middle of the finished panorama. Right now it is on the right-hand side. See enclosed photograph.

Unfortunately, both Lightroom and Photo>Edit>Merge to Panorama in Photoshop, place the alter at the right-hand side of the frame.

Does anyone know how I can place the altar in the centre of the finished photograph?

Thanks,

Geoff

[JohanElzenga]

What you could try is create the panorama in two steps, so you first create two 180 degree pamoramas. If you include the photo of the altar in both 'half panoramas' and then stitch these together, then I would expect that the altar becomes the center because it's the overlapping part of the two images used to stitch the final 360 degree panorama. I never tried this however, so I have no idea if it really works.

[Bob Somrak]

The Panorama shown by the OP is more like 375 degrees so doing it twice would have a 50/50 chance of the alter being in the middle.   The OP could create a 345- degree or less pano with 10 shots making sure both ends furthest from the alter do not overlap and then pano the last remaining 2 shots and pano the 2 DNGs together although that might not work either.   I have done a few mountain panos and just did 350 degrees or so to avoid the issue.

[geoffl18657010]

My thanks to everyone for your replies. I tried Bob's suggestion (below) but the alter stayed, first at the right side, then at the left.

I had photographed the Cathedral as a panorama using several different lenses (Samyang 24mm Shift Lens and Nikon 12-24mm zoom).

In the enclosed photo, I used my Samyang Shift Lens mounted approx 12 feet on my Surveyor's Tripod (much cheaper than the camera brands and they rise much taller). It just 'happened to work' as a panorama with the alter in the middle!

Thanks again, Geoff

[DdeGannes]

Very good job.

It is my understanding that to create a panorama from multiple images there needs to be an overlap of images to enable them to be "stiched" this would necessarily require the images to be taken with the same lens and preferablely  at the same exposure, zoom and aperture.

[geoffl18657010]

Yes, you are right. I should have explained that I did the same panorama several times, each time using different lenses.

I hope that clarifies.

[DdeGannes]

Ok now I understand.

[thomas_bredenfeld]

a 2-step approach gives you the possibility for a precision line-up:
1. make the panorama a seamless 360° image:

• create two guides on the right and left sides marking the exact identical features
• crop the pano horizontally to this guides

2. center the altar

• use a guide to mark the center of the altar
• use a 2nd guide to mark the center of the panorama
• draw a selection rectangle between these guides
• check the info panel for the pixel width of your selection
• go to filter > other > offset and enter the pixel as horizontal offset with the option wrap around enabled
• in your case, the value to enter should be negative as the altar is right of the center

this should precisely center the altar in your panorama

[Bob Somrak]

@thomas_bredenfeld 

The OP wants to do this is Lightroom Classic.

[thomas_bredenfeld]

i was aware of this and my suggestion is meant to be started after his step "Photo>Edit>Merge to Panorama in Photoshop"

[D Fosse]

Just as a general FYI for future reference: this is very easy to control in Photoshop simply by putting the center frame at the bottom of the layer stack. That becomes the reference frame the others align to.

And don't use Photomerge! That's an automated "easy mode". Use Auto-Align > Auto-Blend.

Unfortunately, there's no equivalent to this in Lightroom Classic.

[thomas_bredenfeld]

in LR you can use photo > edit > open in PS as layers and then in PS re-order layers (as you suggested) and then edit > auto-align and edit > auto-blend

[Jao vdL]

Lightroom really cannot do this. There are very few controls in the panorama stitching tool. I use the outstanding (and free) open source tool hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/) or PTgui (commercial pano stitching software based on the same code base) for this. Both require a steeper learning curve than the pano stitching in Lightroom and Photoshop but they at least allow for complete control. I do most of my 360 panos using hugin: https://goo.gl/maps/Xr5K41aJcTLUrp6o6

[thomas_bredenfeld]

great pano. well done. suggestion: try the new AI generative fill in PS beta for floor cleaning/tripod removal

[Jao vdL]

I keep the tripod in on purpose. Been trivial to remove it for ages in the same step where I put in the web address.

[thomas_bredenfeld]

ok, i agree. for a large number of panoramas e.g. in a virtual tour i also batch apply nadir covers with e.g. logo. my suggestion is more meant towards an improvement over other methods like cloning stamp or healing brush, where the generative fill offers a new quality.