http://www.digitalcameraworld.com DECEMBER 2019 DIGITAL CAMERA^75
TOOL SCHOOL1
The HDR
Panorama box
To begin an HDR
panorama, highlight
a set of images in Bridge then
right-click and select Open In
Camera Raw. Next, select them
all in the filmstrip, right-click on
them and select Merge to HDR
Panorama. The HDR Panorama
dialog box can be resized to fit
your screen, but for performance
reasons the preview displayed
within the box is only 1024px long.3
Boundary Warp
When you merge
panoramas, you’ll often
see messy edges and
areas of transparency around the
frame, especially if the camera
was handheld. There are a couple
of options for fixing this. Auto Crop
can be useful if you want to exclude
all of the transparent edges around
the frame. However, if there are
edge details you want to retain,
Boundary Warp warps the edges
outwards to fill in missing patches.2
Projection
options
When segments are
stitched together,
they are stretched to make the
panorama. The command offers
three techniques. Perspective uses
the centre image as a reference,
then skews the others to match it.
Cylindrical maps the panorama as
if on the inside surface of a cylinder
and corrects for bowing between
frames. Spherical maps the frames
as if on the inside of a sphere.4
Auto Tone
This checkbox applies
an automatic tonal fix
to your HDR panorama.
It’s akin to clicking the Auto tone
button in the Camera Raw Basic
Panel. Here it lifts the darker tones
in the buildings and darkens the
bright sky. After clicking Merge,
you’ll see the auto settings that
have been changed in the Basic
Panel, so you can always tweak
them afterwards if you like. It’s
non-destructive and editable,
just like the Auto Crop setting.6
Merge and tone
After working through
the settings in the dialog
here, click Merge. The
default save location will be
alongside the original images.
Once merged, you can enhance the
HDR image using the tonal tools
in Camera Raw, just as you would
with any other photo. The HDR will
pack vast amounts of detail in the
highlights and shadows: these can
be teased out with local adjustment
tools like the Adjustment Brush or
the Graduated Filter.5
Align Images
The set of images here
were taken handheld
(with a fast drive mode
enabled to shoot each bracketed
set in quick succession). The Align
Images setting is automatically
applied to HDR panoramas, which
helps to align the small handheld
movements between frames in
the set. If you prefer to disable
Align (or turn on Deghost) you’d
need to manually create the HDRs
for each segment individually
before merging to a panorama.