Are there any open source programs that can use RAW for stitching photos?

Question

I want to stitch lots of photos together since getting my Sigma 10-20mm. I've got a couple of projects in my head I want to do as well. However, my experience using Hugin for stitching hasn't been wonderful (I'm probably just bad at using it) and RAW is far nicer to edit in. It's been particularly annoying to move out of lightroom, convert everything into TIFF and hope that it looks ok.

Additionally are there any better recommendations people could give me on stitching software in general (doesn't have to be open source)? I'm aware that photoshop 3 has a stitcher but I'm still used to using lightroom.

Thanks!

Asked by Comrade Stokesi

Answer

There's unlikely going to be anything that takes several RAW photos, stitches them together, and then produces a RAW pano, which is what it sounds like you're after. The Photoshop + LR (and other pano software that take RAW as an input) combo makes it seem like it may because it loads up your RAWs to use, but its still TIFF converting and you still end up with TIFF.

RAW isn't really a file format like you're thinking. Its a collection of raw sensor data in a container. By nature, running it through the pano process will make it not RAW.

Use Lightroom to exposure balance your pano individual shots first, and then try Hugin with the TIFFs. Personally, I've had reasonable success trying that lately.

Answered by rfusca

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