Aligning layers by selection / mask bounds ?

[Andrew Mumford]

Trying to align some seascape images - of course the waves are different in each image. 

Is it possible to mask or select only the parts of the image I want aligned, fg / bg rocks etc, such that Affinity will ignore the pixels outside of those areas for analysis ?

Thx

[NotMyFault]

Hi Andrew,

 

could you explain how you try to align the images? Are you using the "New Panorama" and "stich Panorama"?

The official tutorial may provide some hints to optimize the stitching with manual interventions and masking.

Regards,

NMF

[Andrew Mumford]

I was not clear - a thousand mea culpas - I'm not stitching I'm "stacking" different exposures / waves / focus etc for making a comp from all the layers so I want them to overlay each other in "perfect" registration.

Does my question make more sense now ?

In PTGui Pro I can force a stitch on different layers by manual assigning point's but it's a much more longer winded process - I was hoping for something that could automate it for me but with more control than Ablowme PS "Align Layers" which although simple fails often such that I've had to resort to manual pixel nudging for mod cases.

Thx

[NotMyFault]

Ok, that is a different animal 😅

Then you may try one of the stacking tool: new stack, or new HDR merge.  These have the option to automatically align pictures. This works really well even with handheld shots.

In case of HDR merge, you do not need to tone map, just uncheck the box, and only use the alignment and cloning functionality.  The big plus: With HDR merge,  you can automatically remove ghosts, and manually adjust with clone tool if the automatically removal did not work perfectly. 
 

If your mages are too different from each other, this manual process might help. It uses helper shapes to get a perfect perspective adjustment for stacking  

assuming you use 3 images (pixel layers). Image 1 as base/ reference on bottom,  image 2 and 3 to be aligned, above layer 1 in the layer stack  

• On every picture, use the pen tool to create a shape and connect 4 points (corners) in the images with reference points. Use separate shapes, 1 per image. Rename layers to 1,2,3 to stay organized. Use black stroke of about 2 pixel, no fill
• Hide all layers except the 3 shapes, 
• 1 lowest, 3 on top
• add a live perspective filter and nest it to shape 2
• adjust the perspective until the corners match perfectly
• repeat same process with shape 3
• when perspective is ready, move the perspective filters from the shapes to the pixel layers
• hide shapes, enable pixel layers
• add masks (black) on pixel layer 2 and 3
• Paint with brush tool in white to reveal wanted areas. Work from bottom to top.

ic case i missed your question again, it would be great if you can upload example files and a draft version of what you want to achieve. 

[Old Bruce]

On 2/11/2021 at 1:35 PM, Andrew Mumford said:

Is it possible to mask or select only the parts of the image I want aligned, fg / bg rocks etc, such that Affinity will ignore the pixels outside of those areas for analysis ?

Thx

No, Try using new Stack and having the Auto Align turned on.And here are my 2¢ I think that what you are trying to do will be giving better results if you have many images, not just two or three but 10 to 20.

[carl123]

On 2/11/2021 at 9:35 PM, Andrew Mumford said:

Is it possible to mask or select only the parts of the image I want aligned, fg / bg rocks etc, such that Affinity will ignore the pixels outside of those areas for analysis ?

There may be a way to do that but I would need to see the images you are working with

Can you upload them?

[NotMyFault]

Hi Andrew,

i see another post from you where you shared a layer stack of many seaside photos. So using "New >stack" with "Automatically Align Images" seems the first choice for your type of images.

Unfortunately, with waves it might not work ideally. And please keep in mind that masking in a stack works different (only 0 or 1, no gradual masking). So after using the stack to get the images aligned, simply remove the stack before adding masks.

Even a focus merge may be useful. For focus merge, you may need to stack / align the images first, and then export every image isolated as TIFF-16, as focus merge expects pre-aligned images.

Regards,

NMF