Raw or tiff when making panorama

[henders64]

Hello Affinity Users Group -

When making a panorama, is it better to start with raw files, or tiff files converted from raw?  One of the reasons I ask is that, if you make a panorama from raw files, when you click Apply to get out of the panorama pseudo-persona, it kicks you out into the Photo persona, not the Develop persona, so you don't get the chance to even use the tools in the Develop persona.  So it's not clear to me what has been done to the individual raw files, and if there was even any advantage to starting with raw files in the first place.

On a related note --- if you open a raw file in the Develop persona and click Develop without making any adjustments, what specifically has been done to the raw file?

Thank you.

 

[walt.farrell]

RAW files shoud be used only for File > Open or File > New Batch Job, in my opinion. Those are the only operations that make use of the Develop Assistant options, and any other usage of RAW files is likely, at a minimum, to give darker results than you'd like.

I would recommend you Develop your RAW files to TIFFs, and then create the panorama from those TIFFs. And, as you say, that is the only approach that lets you have more control over the Develop processing.

[Blende21]

Depending on the type of Panorama it may make sense to balance the individual photos during development. Often in outdoor pictures the lighting depends very much on the direction of the sun. Doing all with the same settings may result in blown highlights in the direction of the sun, and deep shadows in an angle. The panorama stitcher has an easier job if the individual pictures are closer to each other in terms of exposure and contrast.

[henders64]

Thanks to both of you.

Follow up question for Walt --- you mentioned that using RAW files will likely "give darker results that you'd like."  Yes, I definitely noticed that the RAW version of the panorama came out darker than the TIFF version of the same panorama.  Why is that?

 

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, henders64 said:

Why is that?

Because only Open and New Batch Job make use of all the Develop Assistant settings, I believe.

I think that before 1.8.3 only Open used them all, and batch processing also gave darker results.