Stitching and Exporting Panoramas
Stitch your frames into one equirectangular image, fix the seams and export a 2:1 file the platform accepts without warnings.
You will finish a shoot by turning raw frames into a single equirectangular image with even colours and no visible seams, then export it in a format and a ratio that the platform accepts on the first try.
Stitch the frames
Open the stitching software and load the frames of one position in shoot order. Set the projection to equirectangular and let the software find the control points. Cropping away the bottom of the tripod and the top of the sky makes the result much easier to align.
- Load the frames and keep their original order.
- Choose the equirectangular projection and run the automatic stitch.
- Review the seam at the top and bottom of the sphere and fix it by hand if needed.
- Apply the colour correction to the whole set, not to a single frame.
Export the file
Export as jpg at maximum quality, or as png when you need to keep fine detail in dark scenes. The canvas must be exactly 2:1. For a 6000 by 3000 image, set the height to half the width and let the exporter crop rather than stretch.
Check before uploading
Open the exported file in a viewer that can pan. Look for duplicated people at the seam, a tilted horizon and a black strip at the poles. Fix these in the source project and export again — the platform cannot repair a panorama after it has been stitched.
Keep the original frames. If a scene looks wrong in the viewer, you will return to the stitching project instead of shooting the whole room again.