Hugin Panoramic Software (Freeware Review)

Hugin Panoramic Software

I have been doing panoramic images for sometime mainly in HDR. The two softwares I have had access to have been AutoPano and PTGui. Both have their advantages. However, this is not so much about those softwares for creating panoramic images. As someone who teaches a variety of workshops, including that for panoramic photography, I thought I should sample software which students could get for free, as with the current economic conditions don’t allow for many to purchase a lot of software. So in my search I came across Hugin Panoramic software.  

If you are familiar with PTGui, Hugin is not a long stretch to learn. The interface looks very similar. It’s as simple as selecting your images, entering the focal length, and the crop factor of your camera. Click align, then create panoramic. Granted, this is if your images have the detail to create control points, which will easily connect the images. If not you will have to go through and add control points. This was, in my opinion, easier than the PTGui interface, and quite straight forward. After you have them aligned you can go to the output to let Hugin know what you are looking for, like a Tiff or Jpg or HDR (which needs work).

Most of my Panoramic images are in HDR. I did have a host of issues, which have never really been a problem with PTGui. I just found I had to process them differently. In PTGui, I stitch together all my HDR images then I tonemap the entire Panoramic. I found the software just kept giving me errors and with no result. So I decided to tonemap the individual images with the same settings then went to PTGui to stitch the Tonemapped Tiff together. Finally, after several hours of not getting anywhere stitching HDR images, this method worked, despite what the software was said to be capable of. It did a fairly good job, just on area in my Panoramic was a little ghosting. I figure with a little more time in making adjustments to the area with the ghosting to check the control points, I might have been able to fix it.  

For free software, Hugin works fairly well and is very close in style to PTGui. If you started out with Hugin, and you found that you wanted to upgrade to a $220 software because you become a panoramic photographer, the learning curve is small. If you were to switch to something like AutoPano, the software is a bit different in the interface. I did use the 64 bit version of Hugin, as the 32 bit crashed pretty quickly. However, I was pushing it with large HDR images, which didn’t have the best contrast. After the images were tonemapped for HDR the software has an easy time finding control points.  

You have to play with the software to get a feel for it, but I would definitely recommend it for those who want to save on Panoramic software. I will be making sure all my workshop students use it if they don’t have access to PTGui or AutoPano.  I will be reviewing some Free HDR software soon  for other workshops I create. As I know software accessibility for some is very limited. I have been finding open source software, which I have been very impressed by. If you have recommendations for any open source software, please leave a comment.  

Furthermore, I would like to let people know who teach workshops, that there is a brand-new  website for posting creative workshops. They are giving away free posting to the first 50 people that contact them directly then they offer a trial of $10 for 6 months which then goes to $15 per month to continue to post. They are looking to build their workshop listing as it is a brand-new  site. I paid the $10 for six months to help pay for the work for them to post. I believe in Donating to a good thing, including Open source software. It can take up to 48 hours to post your workshop, but the great thing is, they don’t take a cut of what you charge for a workshop. I have done tutoring, where the tutoring company takes 40%, ouch! Check them out at ArtsAZ.com. If your cities is not listed, they will add it. 

Outdoor Photographer Magazine, Digital In, Paper Out

Outdoor photographer magazine, why it's better to get a digital version rather than a newsstand paper version.

I recently started focusing on my landscape photography, and I decided to get a subscription to Outdoor Photographer for news and reviews of equipment I may like to research for purchase at some point. I also like the idea of getting information of great locations to photograph and places to go. I went to the local Barnes & Noble to check out Outdoor Photographer magazine, which I've had a subscription a number years ago. In picking up the magazine I was very disappointed to see that the magazine had started changing the paper that they print on and decided to go with a quality which had drastically dropped. When looking at these stunning images by other photographers, the image quality was lost on poor paper and printing that Outdoor Photographer magazine now uses. I understand higher quality printing and paper costs more money but this degrades the images in their magazine.

Zinio app

Owning an iPad, I decided through the Zinio App, I would download the Outdoor Photographer magazine. Knowing that the images on my iPad always look great I was hoping the quality of the magazine would show through, and it does. The images look stellar and you're not left with lousy printing on lousy paper. It's unfortunate Outdoor Photographer would print on anything less than what would make their images look good. Maybe they've decided to move to a format which would do the photo's justice. However, in doing so, I think they are leaving many out who cannot afford digital equipment to read a magazine. Maybe one day everybody can afford an iPad, but in this day and age I don't think that is yet possible. So those who cannot afford to have a portable digital format are left with a meager magazine when it comes to image quality. I think they're doing a disservice to their readership, and it's unfortunate to see. On top of it, a subscription to Outdoor Photographer's paper version is more expensive than the better looking digital version. Granted you don't have that paper version which they have to print. However, the quality print is not worth the paper it's on. I like Outdoor Photographer magazine. It just saddens me that they would reduce her quality to such a low for the stunning photographs that they print on their pages.

I highly recommend if you own an iPad definitely spend less money and get the digital version of this magazine, as it's the only way you can see a quality image, in high-resolution. If you don't have iPad am sorry to say you're losing out on the beautiful images by quality experienced photographers. I would recommend writing to Outdoor Photographer and asking why they would sacrifice the quality in a photography magazine whose livelihood is based upon the images they show. As I like flipping through a magazine digital versions are not my first choice. However, I have a feeling that in the future this will be the way most publishers will go. It means less overhead and more profit. Though many may not see it this may be the beginning of the death of print in a paper version. Even so, the one constant is that change is inevitable.