Auto-align/Reposition layers – scripting replacement required

[colinw68056105]

Hello,
When I capture many photos of a product as it rotates 360 degrees and load them as layers in Photoshop, they don’t align precisely. That isn’t surprising given the unavoidable inaccuracy of a rotating table and the slight slipping of a product on the table. I’ve tried all kinds of physical things to obviate the problem, but it’s become futile trying to solve it this way.
I’ve concluded that perfectly aligning all the images must be done in software, but Photoshop’s auto-align repositioning feature doesn’t do the job, probably because sensei can’t infer correctly if the images aren’t closer to identical.
The attached pdf contains a screen grab from Photoshop of 3 images loaded into layers. The images are of the same product although the middle image is the reverse side of the product. The opacity is reduced so you can see the misalignment of the underlying layers. Please don’t hesitate to ask for the psd or raw files if you’d like to play with them. (The images aren’t intended to be final edits).
Any suggestions for a solution to this mis-alignment problem would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Colin

[JJMack]

ALPHASHOT 360 

ORBITVU 360° TURNTABLES

[colinw68056105]

Hello JJMAck-
Thanks for replying. I looked at orbitvu’s site. They don’t seem to have an example of a bottle, which is the kind of product that shows up the problems I’ve experienced trying to perfectly locate a product in the center of a turntable. I’ve found that products, a wine bottle for example, may be slightly asymmetrical and so can turntables, which is why I’d rather spend to solve the problem in software than keep trying more hardware.

[CShubert]

Hi,

The main problem stems from the fact that your object is moving from within the frame, but the camera is not, so all your frames are in perfect position it is what is happening inside it that is changing.

So, one thing would be to select and mask out the backgrounds to just the bottle, then select all the layers and the Photoshop command of Layer/Align/Horizonatal Centers will work as expected.

Another option would be to write up some action that selects all the objects on each layer you have and do the same steps as above so it was an automated process.

Good luck,