Creating a Panorama with Hugin

Panoramas are best created with software designed specifically for the purpose of stitching several photos together. Most individuals are aware that there's a large number of photo stitching software available, but few realize one thing - that most of these software packages are based off of the exact same open source code. They have just been remixed to have slightly different interfaces, but the controls and quality of results remains nearly the same for all.

If you're looking for a good photo stitching program to create panoramas, you should seriously consider using Hugin. Hugin is based off the same code as certain commercial software packages, including PTGUI, with the only difference being that it is free and looks different.

If you've downloaded Hugin and would like to use it to create your own panoramas or to stich a few photos together, then this is the tutorial for you.

Items Needed:

Digital camera
PC running Linux or Windows
Hugin

Step 1: Download Hugin and install it to your computer hard drive - it will work with the Windows or Linux operating system, but it will not work with Mac OS X. Be sure to download the version for your OS, or it will not work (you won't be able to install it at all).

Step 2: Using a digital camera, take a series of photos, with about a 1/4 of each photo overlapping. The more overlap in a photo, the better chances of the software being able to stitch everything together neatly and without issue.

If you camera has a panorama assistant, this would be the ideal time to use it. A panorama assistant on a camera will lock the white balance and color settings down so that each picture in the series has identical coloring. This isn't necessary, but it helps greatly.

Finally, you can take the photos freehand, but it works much better to use a tripod, especially if your camera lacks image stabilization, which could lead to blurs will cause lack of keypoints.