[hugin-ptx] Re: Exposure Stack Troubles

2012-04-10 Thread JohnG
> > ... I tried again, and it worked beautifully.

Yay! Thank you Carl and Calvin for confirming that this works ( saves
me testing it! ). IMHO the "zenith and nadir include masks" method
would be a useful addition to the Hugin documentation and/or Bruno's
tutorials for full-sphere panos.

> > ... Is there a way to direct it [ Enfuse ] to pick a darker exposure?

I'm still trying to get my head around Enfuse parameters ... but two
things I've found that may be of some use :

1. The " --exposure-mu=0.5 " argument is a bit like exposure
compensation (for midtones, at least). By default Enfuse uses 0.5,
which sets the RGB value bias to the middle of the range
(128.128.128). Using "--exposure-mu=0.4" seems to darken the output by
maybe 1 EV. However, the exposure-mu scale is not linear, so " --
exposure-mu=0.3" seems to darken everything a bit too much in my
tests. Exposure-mu bias has little effect on "extreme" shadows and
highlights, so it might not pull in your sky-blue tones as much as you
would like.

2. I've only tested this on stacks with 3 layers, so you might get
something different with 7 layers! ... If the input layers are only,
say, 1 EV apart, the overall contrast of the enfused output is very
similar to the original photos - ie quite strong highlight and shadow
in my dusk landscapes. If the layers are 2 EV or more apart, the
enfused output has noticeably less overall contrast; it seems to pull
the shadows and highlights in more - which is why I'm enfusing in the
first place ... :-) The only limit I've found with this so far is to
stop too much dark noise being sucked up from the underexposed layers.
You might try dropping one or two overexposed layers from the stacks
containing sky ... this might cause enblend problems if you over-do
it, but is probably worth a try.

Hope this helps. If you find a good solution please share !

best,
John


On Apr 6, 4:13 pm, zarl  wrote:
> Hi Calvin,
>
> On Apr 6, 7:52 am, Calvin McDonald  wrote:
>
> > My apologies John and Carl.  With both of you telling me it should work I
> > decided to try again - even though I was convinced I did as you directed
> > and it didn't work.  I tried again, and it worked beautifully.
>
> Great!
>
> > Now that the blending anomaly is gone my interest has move to the shade of
> > blue it selected for the sky.  It picked a paler shade of blue that I would
> > like.  Is there a way to direct it to pick a darker exposure?
>
> Maybe something went wrong with computing exposure values etc., so try
> to reset Exposure, Colour, Vignetting and Camera Curve via the images
> tab -> "reset" button. A description for these values is in  wiki.panotools.org/Hugin_Exposure_tab>
>
> In the Fast Preview window you can modify EV and use the grey value
> pipette.
> See 
>
> Cheers,
> Carl

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[hugin-ptx] Re: Exposure Stack Troubles

2012-04-06 Thread zarl
Hi Calvin,

On Apr 6, 7:52 am, Calvin McDonald  wrote:
> My apologies John and Carl.  With both of you telling me it should work I
> decided to try again - even though I was convinced I did as you directed
> and it didn't work.  I tried again, and it worked beautifully.

Great!

> Now that the blending anomaly is gone my interest has move to the shade of
> blue it selected for the sky.  It picked a paler shade of blue that I would
> like.  Is there a way to direct it to pick a darker exposure?

Maybe something went wrong with computing exposure values etc., so try
to reset Exposure, Colour, Vignetting and Camera Curve via the images
tab -> "reset" button. A description for these values is in 

In the Fast Preview window you can modify EV and use the grey value
pipette.
See 

Cheers,
Carl

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Re: [hugin-ptx] Re: Exposure Stack Troubles

2012-04-05 Thread Calvin McDonald
My apologies John and Carl.  With both of you telling me it should work I 
decided to try again - even though I was convinced I did as you directed 
and it didn't work.  I tried again, and it worked beautifully.  
Unfortunately, I don't know what I (or Hugin?) did wrong before, but it's 
working nicely now.  Thanks for prodding me along.

Now that the blending anomaly is gone my interest has move to the shade of 
blue it selected for the sky.  It picked a paler shade of blue that I would 
like.  Is there a way to direct it to pick a darker exposure?

Calvin



On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 4:57:13 AM UTC-6, zarl wrote:
>
> JohnG schrieb am 04.04.12 02:40:
> >
> > I'm very disappointed to hear that the zenith stack include mask
> > didn't work ... in theory this should be an extremely elegant
> > workaround for Enblend's inability to read across the poles :-(
>
> It should work. If not, I'd check if the stack is properly defined in 
> the images tab, i.e. they have the same number in the "Stack Number" row.
>
> It works so nicely for me that I almost never fall back to masking my 
> input images in Photoshop.
>
> >> On Apr 3, 10:58 pm, Calvin McDonald  wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, March 31, 2012 6:15:46 AM UTC-6, zarl wrote:
> >>>
>  Another option could be to force hugin to use the "sky" parts of your
>  zenith shot with an "include" mask. And since you're using stacks you
>  should define the mask to include every other image in the same stack
>  (there's a drop down list for that in the mask tab).
> >>>
> >>> It seems non-intuitive to me to set an include mask on all images in 
> the
> >>> stack to solve the problem.  It would seem that setting an include 
> mask on
> >>> the one stack image with the properly exposed sky would be right. 
>  However,
> >>> I tried both ways (mask on 1 image, mask on all 7 in the stack) and 
> neither
> >>> worked.  Both produced the same bad result as pictured in my first 
> post.
>
> Calvin, make sure you explicitely set the mask in the drop-down list 
> "Mask type:" to -> "Include region from stack"
> (I'm not sure if this is indeed an intuitive phrase)
>
> Carl
>
>
On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 4:57:13 AM UTC-6, zarl wrote:
>
> JohnG schrieb am 04.04.12 02:40:
> >
> > I'm very disappointed to hear that the zenith stack include mask
> > didn't work ... in theory this should be an extremely elegant
> > workaround for Enblend's inability to read across the poles :-(
>
> It should work. If not, I'd check if the stack is properly defined in 
> the images tab, i.e. they have the same number in the "Stack Number" row.
>
> It works so nicely for me that I almost never fall back to masking my 
> input images in Photoshop.
>
> >> On Apr 3, 10:58 pm, Calvin McDonald  wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, March 31, 2012 6:15:46 AM UTC-6, zarl wrote:
> >>>
>  Another option could be to force hugin to use the "sky" parts of your
>  zenith shot with an "include" mask. And since you're using stacks you
>  should define the mask to include every other image in the same stack
>  (there's a drop down list for that in the mask tab).
> >>>
> >>> It seems non-intuitive to me to set an include mask on all images in 
> the
> >>> stack to solve the problem.  It would seem that setting an include 
> mask on
> >>> the one stack image with the properly exposed sky would be right. 
>  However,
> >>> I tried both ways (mask on 1 image, mask on all 7 in the stack) and 
> neither
> >>> worked.  Both produced the same bad result as pictured in my first 
> post.
>
> Calvin, make sure you explicitely set the mask in the drop-down list 
> "Mask type:" to -> "Include region from stack"
> (I'm not sure if this is indeed an intuitive phrase)
>
> Carl
>
>

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Re: [hugin-ptx] Re: Exposure Stack Troubles

2012-04-04 Thread Carl von Einem

JohnG schrieb am 04.04.12 02:40:


I'm very disappointed to hear that the zenith stack include mask
didn't work ... in theory this should be an extremely elegant
workaround for Enblend's inability to read across the poles :-(


It should work. If not, I'd check if the stack is properly defined in 
the images tab, i.e. they have the same number in the "Stack Number" row.


It works so nicely for me that I almost never fall back to masking my 
input images in Photoshop.



On Apr 3, 10:58 pm, Calvin McDonald  wrote:

On Saturday, March 31, 2012 6:15:46 AM UTC-6, zarl wrote:


Another option could be to force hugin to use the "sky" parts of your
zenith shot with an "include" mask. And since you're using stacks you
should define the mask to include every other image in the same stack
(there's a drop down list for that in the mask tab).


It seems non-intuitive to me to set an include mask on all images in the
stack to solve the problem.  It would seem that setting an include mask on
the one stack image with the properly exposed sky would be right.  However,
I tried both ways (mask on 1 image, mask on all 7 in the stack) and neither
worked.  Both produced the same bad result as pictured in my first post.


Calvin, make sure you explicitely set the mask in the drop-down list 
"Mask type:" to -> "Include region from stack"

(I'm not sure if this is indeed an intuitive phrase)

Carl

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[hugin-ptx] Re: Exposure Stack Troubles

2012-04-03 Thread JohnG
Masks are recognised by both Enblend and Enfuse, so if you don't apply
your mask to all layers in a stack Enfuse may well produce a set of
intermediate images which are difficult to Enblend (and vice versa).
Enfuse doesn't really recognise "the properly exposed" layer of a
stack the way you and I do; it takes (by default) a whole bunch of
subtle parameters into account when choosing which pixel values to use
in the fused output. By including only one layer, you are forcing
Enfuse to find a solution for this stack which might be quite
different from the solution it finds for the adjacent stacks (where
all 7 layers are included) - you are in fact hindering rather than
helping Enfuse to do its thing.

When the rendering process fails before completing the task, the log
file *should* be automatically saved (as output_prefix.txt) in the
project directory. If - for some reason - you don't keep your input,
intermediate, output and PTO files in the same directory ... try
looking in whatever you specified as output directory first, then try
the temp directory, then the input directory. If the process
terminates prematurely without saving the log file, I would say you've
definitely found a bug.

To hide all traces of your tripod, using one *include* mask on the
nadir stack is much less laborious than making a dozen *exclude*
masks :-)

I'm very disappointed to hear that the zenith stack include mask
didn't work ... in theory this should be an extremely elegant
workaround for Enblend's inability to read across the poles :-(

best,
John

On Apr 3, 10:58 pm, Calvin McDonald  wrote:
> On Saturday, March 31, 2012 6:15:46 AM UTC-6, zarl wrote:
>
> > Hi Calvin,
>
> > Calvin McDonald schrieb am 30.03.12 21:32:
> > > Just wanted to ask the group if the Hugin behavior I'm seeing is
> > > expected and if not, get some feedback on workarounds for the problems
> > > I'm having.
>
> > > Here's the configuration: 3x12+1N+1Z - all but the nadir are stacks of 7
> > > exposure bracketed shots (total 260 images). Each stack of 7 is position
> > > Linked. There is just one nadir shot - which is properly exposed. The
> > > CP's are inserted only between the middle image of the 7 in each stack.
> > > The exposure fusing is working nicely in general and I'm getting a
> > > really good stitch alignment-wise, but, I'm having unusual problems with
> > > the nadir and zenith.
>
> > > ZENITH:
> > > Below is a pic of the zenith. I've never seen this before. Why is Hugin
> > > doing this and what can I do to fix it?
>
> > This is an enblend problem, the panotools wiki has a tutorial that deals
> > with it:
>
> >http://wiki.panotools.org/How_to_remove_blending_error_caused_by_enbl...
>
> > Another option could be to force hugin to use the "sky" parts of your
> > zenith shot with an "include" mask. And since you're using stacks you
> > should define the mask to include every other image in the same stack
> > (there's a drop down list for that in the mask tab).
>
> It seems non-intuitive to me to set an include mask on all images in the
> stack to solve the problem.  It would seem that setting an include mask on
> the one stack image with the properly exposed sky would be right.  However,
> I tried both ways (mask on 1 image, mask on all 7 in the stack) and neither
> worked.  Both produced the same bad result as pictured in my first post.
>
> I'll go read up on and try the panotools method
>
> > > NADIR:
> > > Several of the 12 groups of 7 images of the bottom row include the feet
> > > of my tripod. This is very typical for me and I've never had Hugin not
> > > remove them for me with no intervention when including and blending in
> > > the nadir. This is the first time I've done exposure stacks on the
> > > bottom row. For some reason Hugin is leaving in the tripod feet. I've
> > > included an image of this below.
>
> > > So I went in and masked them out. But this makes Hugin crash.
>
> > Can you reproduce that crash and is there an error message? Consider
> > filing a bug report together with a detailed description of what leads
> > to that crash.
>
> I didn't try to reproduce it.  With a 4 hour build time I'm not very
> motivated to run a lot of experiments.  There was no gui error message,
> Hugin just terminate.  The tools might have left a log file around but I
> don't know them well enough to know what to look for.
>
> I do know that changing from 3-4 masks in each stack (on individual images)
> to a single mask on all 7 images in the stack made the crash go away.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > > I note that when cropping, Hugin will allow multiple images to be
> > > cropped at once, but when masking, it will only allow one image
> > > selection at a time. When I masked the tripod feet out I had to do it
> > > one image at a time. To save time I only masked the images with
> > > exposures close to correct. So of the group of 7, I only masked 3 from
> > > each of the 12 sets. Hugin crashes when I do this. It crashes when doing
> > > the build.
>