Getting Started with Autopano Giga: Workflow and SettingsAutopano Giga — a powerful panoramic stitching application — remains useful for photographers who need robust automated alignment, flexible control over projections, and advanced batch processing. This guide walks you through a practical workflow from planning and capture to final output, and explains the key settings you’ll want to know for consistent, high-quality panoramas.
1. What Autopano Giga does well (overview)
Autopano Giga excels at:
- Automatic image alignment and control point detection, reducing manual work.
- Support for many projections (spherical, cylindrical, rectilinear, etc.), useful for different panorama types.
- Batch stitching and batch export, which saves time when processing many panoramas.
- Advanced color and exposure blending to minimize visible seams.
2. Planning your shoot
Good results start before you open Autopano Giga.
- Use consistent exposure settings (manual mode) to prevent flicker between frames.
- Keep white balance fixed.
- Use a tripod and, if possible, a nodal slide or panoramic head to minimize parallax.
- Overlap frames by about 25–40% (more for close subjects).
- Shoot in RAW for maximum dynamic range and color fidelity.
3. Importing images and project setup
- Create a new project and import your RAW or JPEG files. Autopano Giga reads RAW, but many users prefer converting to high-quality TIFF/DNG in a raw converter if heavy exposure or color corrections are needed beforehand.
- Group images if you shot multiple rows or brackets. Proper grouping helps the automatic detection find which images belong together.
4. Let Autopano detect and align
- Use the “Autodetect” feature to let Autopano find control points and group panoramas automatically.
- Inspect the control points: open the Control Points editor to view matches between overlapping images. Remove or add points if alignment problems appear.
- If alignment fails or produces ghosting, try adding manual control points between problem images, or reduce the automatic matching tolerance.
5. Projection and framing
- Choose a projection that matches your scene:
- Spherical (equirectangular) for full 360×180 panoramas and virtual tours.
- Cylindrical for wide horizontal scenes where vertical lines can curve.
- Rectilinear for architectural scenes where straight lines must remain straight (but watch for distortion at wide angles).
- Use the crop tool to set your final framing. Autopano’s “smart crop” can suggest an optimal rectangle, but refine manually to remove artifacts or unwanted areas.
- Use the “Straighten” tool for horizons or vertical corrections.
6. Blending and exposure correction
- Use Autopano’s exposure optimization to smooth out brightness differences. There are options to preserve highlights or shadows depending on your needs.
- For scenes with strong dynamic range, consider exposure fusion or creating HDR source images before stitching. Autopano supports HDR source input (provide bracketed exposures as grouped images).
- Choose between blending modes:
- Multi-band blending for natural transitions.
- Feathered blending for simpler seams (less processing time but possibly more visible joins).
7. Color correction and vignetting
- Apply color correction if stitching images from different lighting situations — white balance shifts are common across large sweeps.
- Use vignetting correction if your lens shows strong light falloff. Autopano can estimate and correct lens vignetting during optimization.
8. Handling parallax and moving objects
- Parallax: minimize in-camera by using correct nodal point and tripod. In software, manual control points and masking problematic regions can help.
- Moving objects (people, cars, clouds): use masking to select the best source image for each area or rely on Autopano’s blending to minimize ghosting. For complex motion, create several partial stitches and composite them manually in Photoshop.
9. Masks and advanced compositing
- Autopano Giga supports layer masks to force inclusion/exclusion of areas from specific images — essential for removing ghosts, merging foreground subjects cleanly, or choosing the sharpest source for different parts of the scene.
- When precise control is needed, export layered PSDs and finish compositing in Photoshop.
10. Output settings and exporting
- Resolution: set the panorama’s pixel dimensions according to final use (web, print, exhibition). Higher resolution increases file size and processing time.
- File formats: TIFF for editing, JPEG for web, and PSD for layered work.
- Stereographic and cubemap exports are available if preparing panoramas for VR viewers or mapping tools.
- If producing 360 panoramas for viewers, ensure correct metadata or export formats required by your viewer platform.
11. Batch processing and automation
- Use Autopano’s batch mode to stitch and export many panoramas unattended. Useful for real estate, tours, and events.
- Save your settings (projections, crop, blending) as presets to apply consistently across a series.
12. Troubleshooting common problems
- Misalignment: add manual control points, check grouping, or re-shoot with better overlap.
- Ghosting/visible seams: increase overlap, use masks, or stitch bracketed exposures and blend manually.
- Strange projections/distortion: try a different projection or reduce field of view by cropping.
- Slow performance: reduce preview size during setup, then render full resolution on a faster machine or overnight.
13. Workflow example (typical session)
- Import RAW files (convert to TIFF if heavy corrections are needed).
- Autodetect groups and run automatic alignment.
- Inspect and fix control points for problem seams.
- Choose projection and crop.
- Apply exposure optimization and blending settings.
- Use masks for moving objects and final touch-ups.
- Export TIFF/PSD for final retouching; create a JPEG for web.
14. Tips, shortcuts, and best practices
- Keep a consistent, repeatable capture method (same overlap, settings, and rotation axis).
- Use presets for export sizes and naming conventions for batch work.
- Back up raw files and save projects frequently.
- Learn a handful of manual control-point placements — they solve many difficult alignments quickly.
Autopano Giga remains a capable tool for creating high-quality panoramas when combined with careful capture technique and considered post-processing. Mastering its control points, masking, and projection choices will give you the flexibility to handle everything from simple single-row panoramas to complex multi-row HDR virtual tours.
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