Printing Panoramas

[pperez1981]

I have a D40 which is a 6.1 mega pixle camera, so I'm limited in print size. My quesiton is, if I have a panoram that is 4 shots stiched together, can i print a larger image since its actually 4 images at 6.1. So can i print a 12x36 print? I know going 36 inches wide with one image is not doable with 6.1 mega pixles, but what about with 4 images.

I'm using Huggin to stitch my panoramas. Does huggin retain the full image quality (mega pixles, RAW data for highlight recovery, etc.) when processing a panorama? Or should I process each images befor I stitch them together with huggin? because would be much easier if i could just post process one image rather than trying to do 4. i know i can alway stamp adjustments, but its not alway that easy when your doing local adjustments. sorry for all the questions. Thanks.

[OsmosisStudios]

Im not sure about HUgin: Ive only used it a bit and wasnt excessively impressed.

From what I gather, though, you'll want to process the RAW files together BEFORE stitching. Once youre done, you'll end up with a MASSIVE file, provided you tell Hugin to render to the max size. It'll be several thousand to a size.

As for determining print size:

Anything up to 8x12 should be 300 pixels for every inch of print (this is 8mp)
Anything large, you can drop the ppi down in steps. I've done a 36x24 at 100ppi and it came out great.

[pperez1981]

What do you mean "it will be several thousand to a size"?

I'm confussed, so your saying I need at least 8mp to make an 8x12 print, or that is what is recommended, since 8x12 prints are going to be viewed at a closer range. Because my 6.1 mp prints are comming out pretty good at 8x12. Maybe, I'm not completely understanding what your saying.

Also, what do you use to stitch your panos? And does that program retain all of the prestitched images data onces stiched into a pano, so you can print large images that you could't just print with one image? I'm I making sense?

[Car2n]

I would stich them before doing any post processing because even slight differences between the images (if processed before stiching) will have an effect on how well the image stiches together.

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by pperez1981

I have a D40 which is a 6.1 mega pixle camera, so I'm limited in print size. My quesiton is, if I have a panoram that is 4 shots stiched together, can i print a larger image since its actually 4 images at 6.1. So can i print a 12x36 print? I know going 36 inches wide with one image is not doable with 6.1 mega pixles, but what about with 4 images.

Your final panorama will not be exactly 4 x 6.1 MP because we don't normally stitch photos at the edge (the trick to getting a good panorama is having enough overlap in each image).

You can even print it at home if your printer has roll paper option.

[pperez1981]

thanks for the input everyone. I understand that there is overlap when stitching the images, but even with the overlap I should be able to print larger images because its more that one image, right? For example, in a 12x36 panorama, the 12 inch side is not a problem because with 6.1 mega pixles I print 8x12 images and they come out fine. But, i can not do the length of 36 inches (with one image) because the resolution is not hi enough at 6.1 mega pixles, but if I use 4 images (even though I lose some of each shot due to overlap) I should be able to do 36 inches wide. Even if I lose a quarter of each image, I am losing a total of one whole shot with 4 images; so I still have 3 shots worth of mega pixles (at 6.1). And if I can print 11x14 images without a problem with one image, then with 4 images I should be able to print something that is 36 inches wide right, because 14inches times 3 images is more than 36 inches. does this make any sense? I hope so.

[dcclark]

Yes, what counts for dpi is the number of pixels in the photo. If you stitch togther 4 images at 6 MP each, with (say) 1 MP of overlap each, you basically have a 20 MP image.

That said, yes you can print 12x36 -- it won't be 300 DPI (nor even 200 DPI), but it will still look just fine. Nobody looks at panoramas from 4 inches away -- they are, by definition, meant to be seen from farther away, to let you take it all in. 100 DPI is just fine.

[pperez1981]

Thanks. I'm going to give it a shot and see how it turns out.

Why wont it be 300 or even 200 dpi? Wouldn't it be the same dpi as a single 8x10 since its essentially 4 8x10s put togehter.

[dcclark]

I realized that you are right about the DPI, so I decided to do some more exact calculations. First, you won't have four 8x10's next to each other, due to overlap, but we'll work with something close.

So, let's assume you have a 6 MP D40, and your images overlap by 1,000,000 pixels. Then four images will have a total of (6+5+5+5) = 21 MP. This gives 220 DPI if you print at 12x36. So, you will have pretty awsome image quality still!