In the video below, you’ll see how easy it is to use Photo Merge in Lightroom Classic to stitch multiple photos together to create a DNG panorama with the quality and flexibility of a raw file.

Below are some of my favorite tips and shortcuts for stitching panoramas in Lightroom Classics.

Ctrl + M (Mac and Win) displays the Panorama Merge Preview window.

Option+Shift+M (Mac) | Alt + Shift + M (Win) bypasses the Panorama Merge Preview window and creates a Panorama image based on the last used Panorama Merge settings.

Editing photos — I prefer to merge the images first and then make tonal and color adjustments to the resulting panorama, as any adjustments made to individual images are not applied when merging with Panorama (local adjustments, vertical transformations and cropping for example ).

To apply adjustments such as profiles, spot correction, or color calibration (which can be applied when merging), make sure the adjustments are made to all images or that the image with the adjustments is the “most selected” image before choosing PhotoMerge > Panorama.

Lens Correction Profiles — If Lightroom Classic can automatically detect which profiles to use, it will automatically apply them before running the merge. If Lightroom Classic fails to automatically detect the correct profile, an alert appears asking you to apply lens profile correction for best results. Lightroom Classic always removes chromatic aberration in a Panorama blend. Note: After merging, lens profile corrections make no sense to apply to panoramas, so the functionality is disabled in the Develop module.

Layout Projections — You have the choice between three different layout projections:

• Spherical aligns and transforms images as if they were mapped inside a sphere. If you are creating a 360-degree panorama or a multi-row panorama, particularly if you are capturing the images with a short focal length lens, such as a 24-millimeter lens, the spherical option will produce a more natural look. panorama.
• Cylindrical projects the panorama as if mapped inside a cylinder. This projection mode works great for wide panoramas, but it also keeps vertical lines straight.
• Perspective selects one image from the middle and then distorts the others to match it, often resulting in an arc.-tie effect.Very wide panoramas may not work well in this mode due to excessive distortion near the edges of the resulting panorama.

Boundary deformation — Use boundary warp to adaptively stretch or reshape the edges of a stitched panorama to fill the rectangle’s boundary (this can be very useful for correcting jagged edges when shooting without a tripod).

Boundary Warp may not work as well on images with architectural features such as straight lines, because the process of warping the image to fill the surrounding canvas can bend and distort the lines. Note: Boundary Warp results cannot be edited after the panorama is created, but you can always create another panorama from the originals using different settings.

Fill the edges — Enable Fill Edges to automatically fill uneven edges in a panorama using Lightroom Classic’s Content-Aware Fill technology. Fill Edges is applied to the raw image so you can still make any non-destructive raw edits after merging the image. Fill Edges works great in combination with Boundary Warp. Use Boundary Warp to reshape the majority of the rectangular area, then use Fill Edges to fill in the smaller areas.

Auto crop — Use non-destructive auto-cropping to remove transparent edges (cropping can be edited/removed from the resulting merged panorama using the Crop tool in the Develop module).

Automatic settings — Enable non-destructive auto settings to automatically enhance colors and tones of the resulting panorama (auto settings can be changed/removed from the resulting file using the Develop module base panel after merging without any quality loss) .

Stacking photos — Enable Create Stack to automatically stack the source files with the resulting panorama (the merged panorama appears at the top of the stack).

File name: Lightroom Classic adds “-Pano” to the end of the merged panorama’s file name, making them easy to find using the Text filter.

File size — There is a size limit of 65,000 pixels on the long side of a file or 512 MP, whichever comes first.