Join/merge overlapping images (not Panorama photos)

[K2021]

Hi, I wonder if there is a way to automatically join a bunch of images (e.g. screenshots) into one. PS can do it pretty well. AP handles panorama photos with lens-based distortion, but that is not what I am after. I think screenshots (e.g. several screenshots of a long scrolling document) are a good example. I have found this app that appears to do the job (http://enblend.sourceforge.net/), but I would prefere to stick with AP since I already own it.

This is not the first time this issue has been raised here, but not recently. I hope the situation might have changed.

Thanks in advance for any kind help!

Best

K

[GarryP]

The Enblend/Enfuse software seems to do both Panorama and Stacking which Photo can do but I don’t know how that applies to your example of screenshots of a long scrolling document.
Can you give us some visual examples of the sort of thing you mean so we can understand more about what you would like to be able to do?

[PaulEC]

If there's no overlap on the images it will be difficult to do it automatically, but it's quite easy to create a blank document, big enough for you to manually add the screenshots (or whatever). Just line them up, then flatten, crop and resize (if necessary.) If there is an overlap the panorama function should do the job.

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, PaulEC said:

If there is an overlap the panorama function should do the job.

FWIW, I did a quick & dirty test using a pair of overlapping screenshots of this topic viewed in a Safari window:

   

 pano output.afphotois the result. I am not sure where the small amount of transparent background came from but otherwise it seems to work very well.

[K2021]

Hi and thanks for all replies!!

 

@PaulEC

The manual method is always a possibility. And t is exactly what I am trying to avoid 🙂

 

@R C-R

I don't know how you do it, but it just does not work for me (see the attachment). AP is trying to correct the assumed lens distortion and introduces distortion into the resulting image.

I use File/New Panorama/Add/Stitch Panorama.

You can try it yourself with my screenshots from here: https://mega.nz/folder/NPoiQDzb#fVNUg2LcpKocG7In0mKysg

 

Best regards!

K

 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, K2021 said:

You can try it yourself with my screenshots from here: https://mega.nz/folder/NPoiQDzb#fVNUg2LcpKocG7In0mKysg

I got very similar results to yours. Maybe it would be better if you used larger images?

[K2021]

Thanks for your interest in this.

I don't think it would work though and also I don't believe it is the right solution even if it works a bit. The problem is with the algorithm, IMHO. It really creates a photo panorama, It is not meant to merge images using overlap and reposition, rotate or perhaps scale but no perspective deforming. I have actually seen stuff like this in other apps. PS has literally a setting for this. In an old version that I used quite some time ago, it was here: File/Automate/Photomerge. See the attached screenshot for the available options and IMO It will suddenly make sense. The program needs to be made to do this, and sadly, I believe, AP is not made to do it yet. Maybe later. I was just hoping to be wrong and discover this option somewhere inside the menus.

K

 

[loukash]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

I got very similar results to yours.

Same here.

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Maybe it would be better if you used larger images?

Screenshots are screenshots. You get all the pixels that there are on your display, and that's about it.
But here APh is obviously just totally dumb in that very specific discipline, trying too hard to be "smart".
Unlike PS: just tested with CS5.1 and its default setting, I got a perfectly aligned screenshot.

But I'm getting pretty good results when scanning e.g. LP album covers. That's usually 4 passes per side on an A4 scanner at 200 ppi.
All of those LP covers from the past ±4 months have been processed via Panorama: https://discogs.com/user/loukash/images [edit: D'oh! Apparently you must be logged into Discogs to see my image uploads!]
Not much manual tweeking was necessary, mostly only when there is small text involved.
In the beginning I did a few comparative scans with PS, and PS sometimes totally failes to even create a usable result while APh just works.

But yeah, more pixels = better results. E.g. scanning LP covers at 72 ppi can turn out rather ugly…

Also, some more algorithm options à la Photoshop would be nice.

Edited June 15, 2021 by loukash

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, K2021 said:

The problem is with the algorithm, IMHO.

I think it boils down to the Affinity algorithm is intended only for pans -- IOW, the camera's location is not moved; it is just panned or tilted between shots. ideally around the focal plane.

[K2021]

@loukash
@R C-R

I am very thankful for your sharing of your experiences.

Since AP is still in active development, we may get this option one day. Until then I will look for another solution. I am certainly not paying the extortion money for the other software, sigh.

Best of luck and as always...

K

[PaulEC]

I'm afraid I was wrong. I've stitched flat documents/screenshots before and it seemed to be fine, so I'm not sure why these are distorted! (Maybe being long and thin doesn't help?)

I've just tried Microsoft ICE and that seems to give better results. It's no longer available from the Microsoft download page, but it is still available from Internet Archive - Wayback Machine. (https://web.archive.org/web/20180724063025/https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/3/9/73918E0B-C146-40FA-B18C-EADF03FEC4BA/ICE-2.0.3-for-64-bit-Windows.msi)

[loukash]

7 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I'm not sure why these are distorted!

Because the Panorama algorithm desperately wants to be "smart" and insists that the "photos" you're feeding it with just "must not" be absolutely parallel.
"Computer sind doof!"

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, loukash said:

Because the Panorama algorithm desperately wants to be "smart" and insists that the "photos" you're feeding it with just "must not" be absolutely parallel.

I doubt it has anything directly to do with that. It just expects to process a series of photos all taken from the same camera position, like on a tripod that is not moved between shots, with the only variation among the shots being the pan and/or tilt angles changed to capture more of the scene.

I have seen very similar looking distortions when using the panorama function of an iPhone camera if I move the camera during the pan rather than just rotate it in place.

[loukash]

6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I doubt it has anything directly to do with that. It just expects to process a series of photos all taken from the same camera position, like on a tripod that is not moved between shots, with the only variation among the shots being the pan and/or tilt angles changed to capture more of the scene.

Well… this exactly what I meant.

[K2021]

@PaulEC

 

MS Research is absolutely awesome. Just watching their presentation videos makes one hope that there is some hope for a technologically better future.

 

For anyone interested, here is more info on the app: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/computational-photography-applications/image-composite-editor/

The wayback machine link does not work for me, but I searched the link provided above in the web.archive.org and went back in time to 2019 and there is a download available. It seems the last version is from 2015 02 25. Did you find any later version, @PaulEC?

The app looks very good. It reminds me of Autopano Giga, which was incredible and was sadly killed during corporate cutbacks before i could buy a copy for myself 😞

Off to do some testing.

K

[K2021]

Back with the result. MS ICE is pretty awesome in this issue's regard, sadly not perfect.

It does not distort images, but introduces some kind of smoothing which is probably very fine for photographs (although still I cannot see a reason for that) but definitely not desired in any kind of line art.

If anyone needs this, I used the following settings (see attachments) and I also provide the result, which is definitely better than anything so far (except for that thing with terrible pricing).

Best regards,

K

[K2021]

After 4 hours of searching and testing I have found a solution in an online editor Photopea. Here is the result, pixel-by-pixel identical to the source.

K

 

[K2021]

Here is the workflow in case anybody needs it. Hope to see such feature in AP!

K