Sometimes panorama stitching doesn't blend images

[haloedrain]

Occasionally when I try to stich photos together with the panorama tool it will put all the photos in the right place but it doesn't actually blend them smoothly together, depite having the blend box checked. It doesn't give an error message, and it doesn't even try to create the layer masks that it has when it does successfully blend all the images in a panorama.

Has anyone run into this problem and solved it? Is there something about the image that might be doing it? Is there a limit on how many images photoshop will blend? The ram is pretty much pegged while it's compositing the image, and that doesn't seem to stop it from putting the images in the right place, but maybe it does stop blending?

Here's the one of the images it fails on:


By the way, this is on Windows 7 x64 with 64 bit installation of Photoshop CS4.

[Steve]

I've never had that problem.
There are 3 things I would try.

Try running PS in 32bit mode.
I've read threads where people were having problems in 64 bit that they weren't getting in 32bit.

Try merging in groups if possible.
If you have 6 images try 3 and 3, and them merge those.

As a test try reducing the size of all of the images and merge the smaller copies.
Maybe you don't have enough ram to process the images properly.

These are all guesses on my part so good luck.

[haloedrain]

Trying a few at a time seems to work better, thanks for the suggestion

[Steve]

Your welcome.
The way you explained it it sounded like a memory issue.

[smalltrees]

very much image dependent... overlapping more always helps...
think of it this way, the more you move side-to-side, and up-n-down from the normal shot...
the more images you will need at the extreme edges, PS is trying to make one image...

in the image posted, I would have also followed the chained barrier/fence...
any strong leading lines, follow with more images...
follow a pattern, then add several random images, to help overlap...
never think you have too many images... just allow PS to have more time...

also use the longest lens, to reduce the distortion at shooting stage, as PS will add it back
while making a super-wide image...

obviously... manual focus that remains unchanged...

rather than down-sizing the images before merging... much easier to shoot smaller files...
PS will be making a very large file, with many smaller ones, and building/adding... resolution...

again... every image will be different, depending on the lines/detail... and the amount of angle you expand to...

hope this helps...