Image registration

[Bill Shaw]

I have an image sequence that I've taken:

http://b.shaw.home.comcast.net/Daytona/seq/index.htm

Image registration has been a real pain. I set up the tripod on marks on the floor each time I'm going to take a picture. There's a little variance in the camera position each time so I bring the shot into Photoshop and tweak.

When adding a new pic to the sequence I have a window in the garage door on the left side and the lettering on the tire balancer on the right side that I use to crop the image, then I set it's width to 1600 pixels. ( I changed cameras a couple of months into this, the old one was only 1600 wide ) Next, I'll take a shot at matching the brightness, contrast & color balance to the last frame in the sequence. I need some help with color balance, as you can see :-)

Next I copy the entire new pic and paste it into the old pic. PS makes a new layer with for the new pic. I click the 'move layers' tool and use the arrow keys to move the new layer, while clicking the 'view' (little eye) icon in the Layers palate to turn the new pic layer on and off. I can get it lined up fairly well this way. Sometimes I need to rotate the pic a bit, which means I back up to the original shot, rotate it, then start over with cropping.

My question is - Is there a simpler way to register images like this?

[Arch F]

Bill,
I have no clue about your problem......but that is cool!
Arch

[Carography]

I cant think of an easier way, but there are alot of tools that PS that may be helpful. Once you have made the "next image" the top layer, you change the opacity to 51%. then you can see the image underneath (previous image). Using the transform tools on the top image (scale , rotate, skew, distort) you can adjust the top layer to get it in registration w/ the previuse image, once in registration, you can change the opacity of the top layer back to 100% and then flatten and rename.
Otherwise awesome as is - fun to watch.

[Bill Shaw]

I like the opacity 50% trick, it's much easier to see the alignment that way rather than flipping back & forth between the images. Thanks :-)

[rockpool]

there's a lot of varience in your zoom and also your angle - too much I think to just be tripod placement?

you could either pick up a $100 camera and leave it mounted, or probably what I would do is put a tape marker on the two back walls and one on the floor in front of the axel stands, and use them as alignment points in photoshop to scale and orientate the image for each frame.

I'm sure there's alignment tools you could use though with the right software.

[Kouros]

Alignment tools won't do a thing unless you have the same focal lenght and angle.

rockpool is spot on.

One think to try is the use of tripod markings on the ground, laser tool (maybe a few) and a fixed angle or lense and focal lenght.

A fixed camera up above the garage with remote triger is best.

my 2 cents.

-K