How can I keep color and exposure consistent when stitching photos of artwork?
Asked 2/25/2015
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2 answers
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I’m photographing two large paintings for book reproduction with a Nikon D90 shooting RAW. One is a triptych, and the other is a very wide, short scene. I’m taking multiple overlapping frames and stitching them, but the adjacent images don’t match well: color shifts slightly between frames, exposure/levels vary, and reflections are stronger on one side than the other.
What’s the best way to capture and process these images so the stitched result looks uniform? Can Photoshop CS6 help match frames after the fact, or is the real fix in how I shoot them?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
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Normally you would include a an object known to be white in each frame. There are special things for this, most commonly White-Balance Cards Then, you use the software to pick the WB from that point. Repeat for each image and the colors will now be the same.
For levels, I suspect you mean that you got a different exposure. To fix that, you must shoot all the set with the same EV, which is easiest to do in M mode by selecting an aperture, shutter-speed and ISO and not changing this between frames. In any other mode, the camera will choose an exposure based on the content, so different painting are likely to give different results.
The same thing for WB can be done for exposure using a gray card. That is an object which is known to have a certain reflectance, usually 30% grey. You include that in each shot and then you can use Photoshop to set levels by sampling from a point on the grey card to be the mid-point.
NOTE: Unless you did the above, swiveling the camera will not solve your problem. The camera will see something different in each frame and therefore will pick different exposure and WB settings. This happens even is shooting RAW where the WB is not baked but usually stored as default.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
The main fix is during capture, not stitching.
Use fully manual settings for the whole set: same aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance for every frame. If you let the camera meter each shot automatically, exposure will vary because each section of the artwork has different tones.
For color consistency, include a white-balance card in each setup and use it to set or correct WB in RAW processing. For exposure consistency, a gray card can help you establish a constant exposure reference.
Reflections are a lighting problem, so try to keep lighting even across the artwork and avoid angles that increase glare on one side.
Photoshop can help fine-tune small mismatches, but if color/exposure/reflections differ significantly between frames, editing becomes difficult and less accurate.
So the best workflow is:
- Light the artwork as evenly as possible.
- Shoot RAW.
- Use manual exposure for all frames.
- Use a WB card (and optionally gray card) as a reference.
- Then make minor matching adjustments in post if needed.
Panning the camera may introduce perspective issues; moving laterally while keeping framing consistent is generally better for flat artwork reproduction.
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