Help with Photomerge

[grizlore]

Before I describe my issue, let me just say that I am a relative newbie at using Photoshop. Most of what I have learned is through tutorials on the web. Also I am currently using CS6.

My issue:

I am trying to stitch together a pretty large panorama I took. Basically the resulting image is 13k x 12k pixels. The initial stitch using Photomerge in CS6 is pretty good, but it results in a bunch of missing sky. This makes sense given that the image is too big and even though I have the original images of the sky, there is no common reference point in those images, so Photoshop is unable to find a place for them.

So my next step was to use Content aware fill to fill in the missing sky. This produces undesirable results as the sky is going from lighter to darker from left to right and it results in a patchy fill. Again, probably understandable since the fill area is probably a bit big. Also the edges where the sky is filled in is visible, even though I used the magic wand to select the area.

I would love some suggestions on how to fix this. My thoughts include:

* Stitching the sky manually. While this could be tedious, I don't mind doing it. The only real issue is I have no idea how to do it. I know it probably involving moving layers around and blending properly, but again I have no clue where/how to start.

* Using some other technique after the initial content aware fill to make it blend together properly. I tried the spot healing brush, but that does not help much. Also, I would need to figure out how to fix the edges.

* Using some other technique altogether to fill in the area and not using content aware fill.

I have attached examples of the two images below so that you have a better idea of what I mean.

Would love suggestions. Thanks in advance.

 

[IamSam]

Hi Griz,

I hate being the first to post on these!

Here's my first impression.......I would remove the existing sky and replace it using a multiple blue colored gradient made to match the current sky.

 

[Paul]

I hear that, i would just make a copy of the main sky colour then paste in the buildings masking out what you don't want.

 

[besmirched]

I would suggest to the op that they try http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ before going to the trouble of fixing photoshops attempt. Also PTgui and AutoPano do really good stitch but are commercial programs.

 

[egosbar]

as everyone is saying , very easy to fix , remove the sky and replace it with a new one

 

[chitkaran]

If you want to do everything manually, Yes it would be time consuming and would require a lot of patience.

- Have all the images in separate layers in the same file.
- Use layer mask to remove the areas you do not want and make the image look more realistic.
- You might have to rotate few images depending on the angle you shot the image at.

Cheers !!

 

[IamSam]

Here's what I was talking about.

Let's say that the sky in this photo is damaged and needs replacing.



First I would create a gradient that closely resembles that of the existing sky. I open my gradient tool, select foreground to background, then select the the first tab and use the "eyedropper" to choose the uppermost color from the original sky as indicated by arrows. Then click and add new tabs and work my way down the original choosing colors to add to my gradient in the same manner I described above. I used 4 in this example, you can use as many as needed.



Then remove the sky in any manner your accustomed to.



Lastly, on a new layer make a selection of the missing sky area and apply the gradient.

 

[egosbar]

i just took the backround out added a new sky , the content awareness actually surprised me that it wouldnt work well , i thought it would blend very easily but i had the same problem as you did

i realise different color but i just wanted the practice

my question is your image looks a lot clearer , why has my image gotten blurry , i thought i used the same image size

your picture in my file is 700kb and the one i done is 1.1mb so not sure why it would be blurrier