From RAW to Panorama

The series of panoramas published here illustrates what is possible to create with the Panorama persona in Affinity Photo, which will soon be available for Windows. Picking a series of RAW images and creating a wide vista is a real option with the program. For anyone.

The panoramas published here are better understood if you also read the article I wrote at ProVideo Coalition about the whole process of creating them inside the Panorama persona in Affinity Photo. The program, which is in beta for Windows — it is already available for Mac — offers users an easy interface to create complex panoramas, and also has tools that allow for precise control of the final stitched images.

Although there are important aspects deserving attention on this new RAW editor that comes to the market a decade after Lightroom introduced new ways to edit images, I focused on the panoramas because they are a very important element of my photography.

In fact, I’ve published multiple articles about the use of panoramas, always trying to make it easier for people to take home series of photos that really show the dimensions of some landscapes we come across. Making it easier for people means telling them they don’t need lots of gear and a university degree to create panoramas. Just some common sense, capacity to follow simple instructions and the will to try, and try again if something goes wrong.

With some practice and the help of modern programs, panoramas are accessible to anyone, even with a simple compact camera — one offering manual controls helps… — so why not try it? The reward is gigantic… by all means.

The images here are from different places, taken on different occasions, with different cameras too. Some resulted better than others, but my point with this series was to show that with the right software one can create vistas that really give viewers a different experience of the landscapes the photographer shares.

Some of the images here would be better with adjustments that I did not care to make at this stage. I just wanted to create panorama after panorama and see how the magic of Affinity Photo managed to stitch photos that sometimes were taken with focal lengths that were not the most adequate to a sound final result. I like to take it to extremes, also to understand how the software is capable of managing and “cleaning” the errors made by the photographer. The images here will, I hope, make you want to go and create your own panoramas.

If the idea of wide vistas appeals to you, then go and get Affinity Photos, either for Mac or for Windows, depending on the system you use. The program is the same on both platforms. For less than $50 you get not only one of the best panorama programs around — for users that need to get their landscape photos stitched together — but also a complete photo editor that will help you to get final edited photos from your most cherished files.

Also, go to ProVideo Coalition to read about some technical aspects and see the videos that explain the tools and techniques available within the Panorama persona of Affinity Photo.

I will in 2017 be offering workshops on Affinity Photo, to help people get started with the program. Follow my pages — in Portuguese — at Fotografia & Contexto (Photography and Context) for more information on this and other activities. In fact I will go back to show people quick ways to edit their photographs, within the new tools that Affinity Photo offers (as well as On1 Photo RAW), in the year that, I dare say, Lightroom stops being the solution.