Stitching pros - need some help!!!

[thexcuriousxwanderer]

I have these 2 pictures taken during a lunar rainbow in Zambia using a Canon G12. The problem is due to it being 30 secs per shot and changing light conditions, they are not very well aligned, nor is lighting the same (times like this you wish you had a FF).

I've tried using the stich functions from autostitch and photoshop but none works. Manually I can align it, but really am not sure how to progress from there. Can someone help me out or give me some advice on how I should approach it? Thanks!

The photos with watermark are here if someone is interested:

If you need the RAW files to play around with I will be happy to send it to you. Thanks!!!

 

[sunsetbay]

can post the pics w/o the watermark~? PS cant perform the merge properly~

 

[foxtwo]

After you have manually aligned it, select the top layer and apply a layer mask. Use the brush tool, feather 0, opacity ~70%, paint black over the obvious edge lines. To undo, just paint over with white. Use different opacity to blend in the 2 images.

Very easy, less than 10mins to finish.

 

[miaoteh]

after manual alignment of layers, you can select both layers, then select Edit-->Auto-Blend Layers, then select "panorama" to let Photoshop do the job for you, i tried by using your files (with watermark patched away for better stitching).

the auto-blend need some tweaking in this case, because the auto-blend after manual alignment will result in not so smooth end result of the rainbow, mostly due to the overlapping area of the rainbow (see below).

what i did was, after manual alignment, delete away portion of rainbow at the bottom layer that overlaps with the upper layer, then use the "Auto-blend layers" again, in a way "force" Photoshop to use the rainbow from upper layer to blend in the final picture, and i get this:

HTH