Pano stitch has way fewer pixels that expected

[Nadeem28230335k4xr]

I recently stitched a panorama from 5 individual vertical shots, each 6240 (tall) x 4160 (wide) in LR desktop.  The resulting pano is a paltry 2713 (tall) x 4950 (wide).  The stitched image is half the size of just one of the original images.

Even with the overlap in the images and cropping out the bits where there was no info after the stitch, it should still be significantly bigger, right?

Edit to add: I stupidly deleted the orignal 5 raw images after doing the stitch 😞

[JohanElzenga]

Sounds like perhaps Lightroom used smart previews instead of originals (although the height should then be no more than 2650 pixels). Lightroom normally does not use smart previews (unless these were images synced up by Lightroom Classic).

[Nadeem28230335k4xr]

As mentioned, I used Lightroom Desktop, not Lightroom Classic.  My Lightroom version is 7.1.2, and it was the original, full size RAWs I was using in local browsing mode.

[JohanElzenga]

As mentioned, I used Lightroom Desktop, not Lightroom Classic.  My Lightroom version is 7.1.2, and it was the original, full size RAWs I was using in local browsing mode.

By @Nadeem28230335k4xr

I know that, read my answer again. I wondered how the images got into Lightroom desktop. If you synced them up from Lightroom Classic, then they would be smart previews rather than originals, which might explain this. You won't see the difference while browsing them in Lightroom, unless you specifically check for that.

[Jao vdL]

Assuming you worked from the full raw images, this might happen based on the projection you chose and how much overlap there is. For example if you shot with an ultrawide lens and you chose rectilinear projection and your images have a lot of overlap that is a bit random, the auto crop might make you end up with lower resolution than any original. Check for this by opening the crop tool and seeing if you have lots of regions that don't fit a rectangle crop well.

[JohanElzenga]

I guess we'll never know because the originals were deleted after the panorama was created. I trust this will convince you to never do that. Just imagine you had deleted all your noisy images, only to find that with the new AI noise reduction they would have been perfectly useable images after all...

[Nadeem28230335k4xr]

I found my original RAW files, hooray for multiple backups!  I did pano stitch again (Lr Desktop, v7.1.2, using local browsing).  I did both a spherical and cylindrical stitch.  Both came out as expected, 12000 x 6000 (ish, I didn't write down the exact number).  I also did a stitch in Affinity Photo 2 and got the same result.  Even after cropping I was still at around 10000 x 5000.  Not sure what happened the first time I did it.