Landscape Panorama

One of the subjects I like most is the landscape panorama. It just seems to me that the 4x3 or 16x9 layout is just not expansive enough.

It is relatively easy to do now in Lightroom though there are one or two wrinkles that you need to follow.

I will use the panorama I recently made of Capetown to illustrate my workflow. This panorama is made from photos that are quite old and not ideal.

Here are the two photos out of the camera.

First you need to take stock of what has to be done.

• Fix curvature of the horizon
• Remove lens flare
• Remove sensor spots
• Routine Edit of photo

Photo details:

Canon 40d
lens at 22mm
f22
1/60 Second
ISO 400

In-camera produced jpeg as I did not shoot raw then.

First thing I go to is the Lens Corrections.

I use this to remove chromatic aberration and use the Canon lens profile. This adjustment tends to sort out a little vignetting and perhaps some lens distortion.

However it does not sort the curvature of the horizon. Although Lightroom can sometimes fix it when stitching It is better to sort that manually. So I go to the Manual Lens Corrections and adjust the distortion slider manually.

Then you will get photos as below. Crop these to remove the white parts.

Then, either synchronise the two photos, or repeat the process with the other one until both are done.

Stitching is easy. Highlight both photos and then left click and choose Photo Merge ….. Panorama.

Most often I will use cylindrical though sometimes with buildings perspective works.

Then you will get a photo as below.

Using boundary warp will fill in the white blocks, but care is necessary to avoid horizon distortion.

Processing and editing after this depends on your taste and order of doing work.

1. I check and adjust noise and sharpness. Sometimes the noise is just so great it is not worth proceeding with the photo. Also, it may be a little soft for any reason and if the sharpening introduces unwanted artefacts, again it might be - stop there.

2. I always add a little post-crop vignetting to the photo to provide a central focus maximum -10.

3. I do not normally use the de-haze function as it sometimes makes photos look artificial but for this one I added about +30 to keep colours natural.

4. I generally like to increase contrast a bit, so I put the Tone Curve to Medium.

5. Often in Landscapes the sky is too bright, so I then do a graduated filter -0.5 stop to darken the sky.

6. Then I go into the Basic Editing. This is done to your taste. For me, it is usually Reduce Highlights, Boost Shadows, Drop the Black until there is Black Clipping warning. I add a little Clarity and Vibrance, then increase Contrast and re-adjust the various settings until the Histogram and the photo looks right.

7. Then I go on to removal of sensor spots using Spot Removal.

8. Remove unwanted elements. The lens flare I removed using the Spot Removal on heal, small sections at a time.

9. I the use Hue Saturation and Luminance sliders to enhance colours (or change contrast in Black and White). In landscapes increasing saturation and decreasing luminance for blue for example.

10. Finally I use brushes to Dodge and Burn or add local clarity.

The result is below.

Finding your own workflow is important. I have seen many other videos and tutorials on other photographers workflows. My pattern is generally what suits me for the older photos I edit. With my modern Canon 750d I have generally a much better image to start working with. Less noise, sensor dust and better dynamic range.

The only problem is I am not in Capetown at the moment to take the photos.

Photos by @tomcarpenter