Today’s Question: When assembling a composite panorama is there any significant differences or advantages between processing the RAW files in Camera Raw or Lightroom before merging into a composite panorama versus simply merging the original RAW files into a composite panorama, flattening it and saving it as a PSD image file, and then using the Camera Raw Filter for editing using the selected image layer in Photoshop?
Tim’s Quick Answer: There is at least a theoretical advantage to processing the raw captures via Camera Raw or Lightroom rather than rendering into a composite panorama first. From a practical perspective the advantage is more about workflow flexibility.
More Detail: If you process raw captures and assemble a composite panorama using Camera Raw or Lightroom, you are processing the original raw data using the applicable adjustments. This provides a potential benefit in terms of image quality compared to applying adjustments to rendered pixel data later in your workflow, such as with the Camera Raw filter in Photoshop.
The advantage in terms of image quality generally won’t be very significant unless relatively strong adjustments are required. The stronger the adjustments, the greater the advantage of working with the raw capture data rather than rendered pixel data.
In my view, however, the key advantage is more about workflow flexibility and efficiency. If you assemble a composite panorama using Camera Raw or Lightroom you are creating an Adobe DNG file that essentially amounts to a new raw capture. If you process that image, the adjustments you applied before assembling the composite panorama are still non-destructive, so you can change the settings without degrading image quality.
For example, if you convert raw captures to black and white in Camera Raw or Lightroom and then merge the images to a composite panorama using Camera Raw or Lightroom, the adjustments are simply metadata values. You could later change the Treatment option from black and white to color, and you would be back to the original color version of the image.
From a workflow perspective, I therefore prefer to use Camera Raw or Lightroom to assemble composite panoramas. The only reason I would use Photoshop to assemble with a more manual process is if the panorama didn’t come together well with Camera Raw or Lightroom. In that case, the images can be assembled into layers in conjunction with layer masks to merge the images together. Thankfully, most of the time Camera Raw or Lightroom do a great job of assembling composite panoramas.
Note that I covered the process of assembling composite panorams in great detail in my lesson “Panoramas and High Dynamic Range Images”, which is Chapter 3, Lesson 8, in my comprehensive video training course “Mastering Lightroom Classic”. This course is included at no additional cost in my GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle, but is also available as a standalone video course here:
https://www.greylearning.com/courses/mastering-lightroom-classic-2023
