How to Stitch multiple shots and repair uneven edges
1 Prepare your shots
To make sure our scenic panorama would be framed by the cave’s edge, we panned the camera in portrait orientation and snapped six shots, making make sure that the edge details in the consecutive photos were overlapping.
2 Open source files
Pop those photos in a folder on your Mac, then open Affinity Photo. Choose File > New Panorama. In the window that opens, click Add. Select the first photo,
ß- click the last one to select the rest, click Open, then click Stitch Panorama.
3 Experiment with images
A preview of the stitched panorama will appear in the Panoramas panel. You can fine-tune it by unticking any of the source images. Click Stitch Panorama again to see another version. Select the version that looks the best, then click OK.
4 Render panorama
Affinity Photo will analyse the shots, align them in a larger canvas and blend the edges to create a wider panoramic image. Because it has to warp and transform the shots to blend, you’ll notice uneven transparent edges. Click Apply.
5 Straighten horizon
To fix the slightly tilted horizon, click the Crop tool icon. Move the pointer outside of the crop area to summon the rotate tool. Drag to rotate the shot so that its horizon aligns with the Crop tool’s horizontal grid, then click Apply.
6 Hide misaligned areas
Zoom in to examine the image. Some stitched edge details may be misaligned due to moving objects. Grab the Clone brush; å- click to sample an area, reposition the brush and spray the sampled pixels over the unwanted bits.
7 Remove artefacts
Here, we have sensor spots in the graduated sky. The Clone brush may leave a trace when you transplant sky from one area to another, so switch to the Healing brush and å- click to sample clear sky and spray it over the artefacts.
8 Repair edges
Our stitched panorama has uneven edges. Simply cropping them out risks losing detail. Instead, we’ll extend existing rock and sky pixels into the gaps. Switch to the Flood Select tool and untick the Contiguous option in the context toolbar.
9 Select and extend
Click in a transparent area. Because we unticked Contiguous, all transparent pixels in the image become selected. Choose Edit > Fill. In the Fill window, tick Inpainting, then click Apply to fill the selection with rock and sky pixels.