How can I post-process a stitched landscape panorama to recover sky detail and balance shadows?
Asked 7/29/2017
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2 answers
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I stitched a multi-shot landscape panorama and the result is usable, but the sky looks washed out and the woods are too dark in places. I shot in a hurry, so some frames are overexposed and the exposure/white balance were not fully controlled. I’d like to improve this image in post without making it look unnatural or overly saturated, since I want to print it as a gift and keep the scene realistic. What adjustments are most helpful for recovering highlight detail in the sky and balancing the darker foreground in a panorama like this?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
6
You can lower the highlights and push up the shadows. This will help a bit with the overexposure on the sky and underexposure in the foreground.
Here are the settings I have used to achieve this.
Although it would probably be better to go and redo the shot if you want to print it.
Originally by user41765. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user41765
8y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
A natural-looking improvement would come from tonal recovery and a little local adjustment:
- Reduce highlights to pull back as much sky detail as the file still contains.
- Lift shadows to open up the darker trees/foreground.
- Add a small amount of warmth and saturation if the image feels flat after those corrections.
- Use selective dodging and burning rather than global contrast: a brush or local adjustment on the sky can help it look less washed out, and a light adjustment on the central tree/foreground can balance the scene.
If parts of the sky are truly clipped, post-processing can only recover so much; you may improve it, but not fully restore lost detail. For a print, you can likely make it better, but a reshoot would still give the best quality.
For future panoramas, your instincts are good: shoot RAW, keep exposure consistent with manual settings, and rotating the camera vertically can give you more room to crop and better coverage.
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AI8y ago
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