Q re: exposure on a pano

Ann McRae

So I have a pano that I made & really like. You can see it in this post:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=43431&page=2

I have a friend with a large printer (Epson 4400? maybe). Well, he has been bugging me to print something, and I would like to print this. His feedback is he would like his friend, the pro photog & photoshop expert, to look at it cuz it still has a 2 stop exposure difference L to R. My gut is that since the camera exposure was set to be the same, and that since these photos (4 of them) span a good distance, and it was sunrise, there WAS in fact a huge exposure difference in the scene. Would you fix it???

I will be away about 10 days, but look forward to any discussion in the meantime.

cheers

ann

Shay Stephens

If I wanted to fix the exposure difference I would probably hit the pano with a right to left black to transparent gradient that would darken the brighter side. That would do a lot to normalize it to taste. Set the opacity at first to something low enough to tell what is going on and then fine tune it to dial in the right amount of darkening.

Ann McRae

Hiya Shay!!

Wonderful advice.

Now, philosophically...should I want to fix (normalize) the exposure?

ann

Shay Stephens wrote:

If I wanted to fix the exposure difference I would probably hit the pano with a right to left black to transparent gradient that would darken the brighter side. That would do a lot to normalize it to taste. Set the opacity at first to something low enough to tell what is going on and then fine tune it to dial in the right amount of darkening.

Shay Stephens

Ann McRae wrote:

Hiya Shay!!

Wonderful advice.

Now, philosophically...should I want to fix (normalize) the exposure?

ann

I don't think everything photographed needs to be normalized. Nature exists with hotspots, dark shadows, saturated colors, and lots of distractions ;-)

Normalizing can be taken to the extreme of sanitizing. So I would say, if it does not print well, or is expected not to print well, then of course adjust to get the output you want. Let your own desires and printing needs guide you there