Een regelmatig besproken stukje software in het Foto & Video Workflow-subforum is PTGui. Dit programma richt zich op het maken en aanpassen van samengestelde beelden. Dat kan een verticaal of horizontaal panorama zijn, maar ook één groot beeld met een enorme resolutie dat samengesteld is uit talloze afzonderlijke opnames. Met een stapel foto's als invoer kan het programma op zowel macOS- als Windows-computers zelf uitzoeken hoe ze naast elkaar gezet moeten worden. Voor het rekenintensieve deel kan bovendien via OpenCL de gpu worden ingezet om sneller klaar te zijn. Het beschikt over verschillende opties, waarbij het met PTGui Pro ook mogelijk wordt om onder andere hdr-foto's te combineren, bewegende objecten te maskeren en het kijkpunt aan te passen. Eerder deze maand is versie 12 uitgekomen en nu is de eerste update verschenen, een bugfix-release. De changelog sinds versie 11.32 ziet er als volgt uit:
Changes in version 12.1Changes in version 12.0
- Faster switching of images in the Crop/Mask/Control Points tabs when using bracketed linked images.
- Some performance improvements, in particular when GPU acceleration is not used.
- Added sensor sizes of new cameras.
- Fixed: Cropping circle of the TTArtisan 11mm lens (only visible on medium format camera) was set too small.
- Fixed: Camera database: if there was an entry for 'unknown camera (no EXIF data)', it would be lost after restarting PTGui.
- Fixed: In the panorama editor, in 'edit individual images' mode, when hovering over images, the wrong image would flash briefly.
- Fixed: If the Batch Builder was used without a template, bracketed images would not be linked automatically.
- Fixed: Apply Template did not copy the Post Process settings to the project.
- Fixed: Blending artifacts if the option 'Red masks: use only to adjust seams' was selected.
- Fixed: possible Assertion Failed errors for some projects
PTGui 12 features a new and improved blender, automatic optimum seam placement (in the Pro version) and much more! For an overview of the most important changes see What's new in PTGui 12.
- Automatic optimum seam placement: PTGui Pro 12 will analyze the regions where images overlap, and place the seams in those areas where there is the least difference between the overlapping images. It will attempt to automatically route the seams around moving objects. Also, stitching errors from parallax will be hidden as much as possible.
- New 'zero overlap' blending algorithm: blending is done by minimizing the exposure differences at the seams where the images meet. No overlap is needed and pixels outside the seams are not used. Combined with the new optimum seam placement this is able to create absolutely seamless panoramas even of busy scenes with many moving objects. The Multiband blending algorithm used in PTGui 11 and earlier is still available as an option.
- New HDR workflow: Merge bracketed images to HDR first, then blend. PTGui Pro 11 and earlier would use the reverse workflow: create blend planes for each exposure level, then merge to HDR. Both options are now possible. The new workflow permits creating HDR panoramas from images taken in automatic exposure mode.
- The purpose of linking images has changed: in PTGui Pro 11, linked images would get the same yaw, pitch and roll angles but linking did not otherwise affect HDR processing. In PTGui Pro 12, linking the images will tell PTGui Pro that they belong to the same bracketed set but they don't necessarily have the exact same yaw, pitch and roll. In the 'merge to HDR, then blend' workflow these linked images will be combined to a single HDR source image. In the 'create blend planes' workflow, linking is also necessary because it tells PTGui to place the seam identically for these images. This is important because differently placed seams would cause artifacts when merging the blend planes to HDR. Because linking the images in PTGui 12 no longer automatically gives them the same yaw, pitch and roll angles, a separate 'Link' checkbox has been added to the Image Parameters tab. If unchecked, the bracketed images will have different yaw, pitch and roll angles.
- PTGui Pro 12 no longer distinguishes between HDR and non-HDR panoramas, every panorama is HDR. The stitching pipeline uses floating point data internally and any panorama, bracketed or not, can be rendered to HDR formats such as OpenEXR.
- New 'Fill Holes' function (PTGui Pro). If enabled, all transparent areas in the panorama will be filled with a smooth color gradient matching the surrounding areas. While not not a true replacement for patching in an external image editor, it works well for example for filling up the blue sky in a drone panorama. Or it can be used as a quick way to cover the nadir of a spherical panorama.
- PTGui 12 is fully color managed. Color profiles in source images are recognized and images will be displayed properly on screen. PTGui can transform between color spaces; the desired target color profile can be selected in the Create Panorama tab. Panoramas from RAW source images are no longer limited to sRGB as in PTGui 11.
- PTGui has been ported to Linux. The Linux version is fully functional, including support for OpenCL GPU acceleration. A PTGui license is platform independent, so a single license now allows you to run PTGui on all major desktop operating systems. For more information see ptgui.com/linux.
- A new Post Processing side bar was added to the Panorama Editor for adjusting the toning curve, white balance and saturation. This is useful in particular when working with RAW source images. The white balance and exposure adjustment sliders have been moved from the Exposure/HDR tab to this Post Process side bar.
- PTGui Pro: The behavior of red masks is configurable. Previously red masked areas would always be made transparent in the warped image layers. This would result in a hole in the blended panorama if no other image overlaps. By setting 'Red Masks: Use only to adjust seams', the mask will not result in transparency, it is only used to guide seam placement.
- Users of the standard version of PTGui 12 gain access to a number of features previously only available in PTGui Pro: vignetting / exposure correction, Exposure Compensation (for panoramas taken in automatic exposure mode) and most of the Project Settings tab.
- The grid (crosshair) in the Panorama Editor can be hidden entirely, by clicking the little triangle below the panorama in the Panorama Editor.
- Switching between Exposure Fusion and Tone Mapping (True HDR) can now be done from the panorama editor's side bar (PTGui Pro).
- Exposure Fusion is now supported for non-bracketed panoramas as well (PTGui Pro).
- Improved metadata support: most XMP metadata is now copied from the first source image to the panorama. This includes for example author, location, copyright info and custom XMP data. Generally all XMP metadata is copied, except for metadata specific to the source image but not applicable to the panorama. For example metadata concerning focal length or the image size is not copied to the panorama, but replaced with appropriate values for the stitched image.
- The following additional EXIF tags are now copied from source images to the stitched panoramas: Artist, Copyright, GPS date, GPS time, GPS satellites, camera make/model.
- Metadata is now written to Photoshop files as well. Previously this was limited to jpeg and tiff output.
- New option 'Masking pushes back seams' in Panorama Editor - Blending tab (PTGui Pro). This controls the location of the seams if optimum seam finding is disabled and masks are placed. If this option is checked, a mask will 'push' the seam away (as was the case in PTGui Pro 11). If disabled, the seam will stay close to the middle of the overlap area even if masks are nearby.
- Handling of the camera response curve has been changed. The camera curve must be known for proper vignetting correction and HDR processing, because these operations are done on the actual linear luminance values. Cameras and raw converters generally apply a toning curve to the linear data when creating a tiff/jpg image, to create a more pleasing image. In order to determine the actual luminance of each pixel, PTGui needs to know this curve, so it can 'undo' this adjustment. Previously the camera curve was part of the lens profile, but this was not ideal. First of all, RAW and HDR images contain linear luminance values, so for those images no camera curve is necessary. Secondly, when a project uses multiple lenses on a single camera, a single curve should be used for all images. Therefore the camera curve is now a separate entity in the project. Each project can contain 0 or more camera curves. In the Image Parameters tab, the camera curve for each source image can be selected, or 'Linear' can be selected if the image data is already linear and should not be corrected with a camera curve. PTGui handles this automatically: when loading HDR and RAW source images, their camera curve will be set to Linear. For all other types a default curve will be used. As previously the actual camera curve can be estimated by the 'automatic exposure and color adjustment' process in the Exposure/HDR tab. The optimization requires bracketed images, because the estimate is made by comparing the same pixel in differently exposed images.
- PTGui 12 uses a different format for the camera response curve (Exposure/HDR tab). In PTGui 11 the curve was defined against the pixel values as stored in the image file; in PTGui 12 it is defined against the linearized image data (according to the ICC profile). The ICC profile's gamma is no longer included in the camera response curve.
- New white balance correction algorithm. Previously there were sliders for adjusting the red/green/blue channels but the results were limited. White balance is now adjusted by setting a Kelvin color temperature for each image (in Image Parameters tab) and a color temperature for the blended panorama. The latter can be adjusted in the Post Process tab. A chromatic adaptation algorithm is used to transform the colors.
- The contrast and saturation sliders have been removed from the Tone Mapping section. These are replaced by the new Toning Curve and Saturation adjustments in the Post Process tab, which offer more precise control, and are available also when tone mapping is not used.
- Much better image quality when working with raw/dng source images, due to the new toning, white balance and saturation adjustments.
- PTGui now reads and writes color profile data in EXR images. Conform the official OpenEXR specification, the color profile is read and written in the 'chromaticities' tag. But note that this is not widely supported. Many other applications (including Photoshop) ignore this entirely, and assume all .exr files have a linear sRgb color profile.
- The PTGui Viewer application is now color managed and will display panoramas in the proper colors.
- The scale of the vignetting curve (in the Exposure/HDR tab) for circular fisheye lenses has been adjusted. Previously, for all lens types, the right edge of the graphs corresponds to the corner of the source image (after cropping). Because for circular fisheye images the cropping circle only extends to the edges of the cropping area, but not the corners, for circular fisheye images only the leftmost 71% of the vignetting curve was actually applicable. For circular fisheye images the graph is adjusted so that the right hand side corresponds to the edge of the image circle.
- New option: Options - General - "Keep multiple panels open in the side bar in the panorama editor"
- New setting: Exposure/HDR - Precision: switch the internal processing precision between half float and full float. Full float can be used for images with extremely high dynamic range (for example when including the Sun's luminance). Otherwise half float is sufficient, requires less memory and is the default setting.
- New setting: Project Settings - 'Align Images' behavior - perform automatic exposure and color adjustment - but only if alignment was successful.
- Automatic exposure and color adjustment is now done by default as part of 'Align Images'.
- Preview exposure (as set in the Display panel in the Panorama Editor, and the sliders in Mask/Crop/Control Points) is no longer saved to the project file. Preview exposure is reset to 0 when the project is loaded the next time. This was a common source of confusion because it changes the brightness of the panorama in the Panorama Editor but not the actual stitched panorama.
- A warning icon is shown in the Panorama Editor's side bar if the preview exposure is nonzero.
- Green indicators are shown in the Tone Mapping, Exposure Fusion and Post Processing side bars in the Panorama Editor when they are active.
- DNG files from the Leica M10 Monochrom camera are now supported.
- Added Load/Save/Defaults buttons in the Exposure Fusion panel in the Panorama Editor side bar
- 'Exposure and color adjustment settings' window: 'Optimize Exposure' has been renamed to 'Optimize Brightness' which is more correct. The former two options (Full and Fine Tune) have been replaced by a single option 'Enabled'.
- Dithering is applied to all 8 bit/channel output files, to solve banding artifacts. 16 bits output is not dithered.
- Added support for Sony .ARQ files
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