• Hugin Software
• Hugin Valheim
• Is Hugin Safe
• Huginn And Muninn Meaning

Hugin is an excellent tool for for aligning and stitching images. In this article, we’ll focus on aligning a stack of images. Aligning a stack of images can be useful for achieving several results, such as:

Hugin is a panoramic photo tool from Ippei UKAI. It's a large, flexible, and capable application that is based on the same open-source code as many expensive pro-level tools, but Hugin is freeware. HUGIN Superior autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is the latest addition to the HUGIN family of AUVs developed by Norwegian firm Kongsberg Maritime. Introduced in December 2018, the HUGIN Superior system provides enhanced data, positioning and endurance capabilities in various defence applications such as underwater survey, covert rapid.

One of Odin's ravens, otherwise known as Thought. See Thought and Memory. Hugin is an open source tool, designed to create panoramic images by joining together several photos. This tool is based on Panorama Tools, and produces great and speedy results. Hugin's aim is clear: to be a simple and easy to use platform that can take a number of spectacular photographs and turn them into a seamless panorama image.

• bracketed exposures to make an HDR or fused exposure (using enfuse/enblend), or manually blending the images together in an image editor
• photographs taken at different focal distances to extend the depth of field, which can be very useful when taking macros
• photographs taken over a period of time to make a time-lapse movie

For the example images included with this tutorial, the focal length is 12mm and the focal length multiplier is 1. A big thank you to @isaac for providing these images.

You can download a zip file of all of the sample Beach Umbrellas images here:

Download Outdoor_Beach_Umbrella.zip (62MB)

Other sample images to try with this tutorial can be found at the end of the post.

These instructions were adapted from the original forum post by @Carmelo_DrRaw; many thanks to him as well.

We’re going to align these bracked exposures so we can blend them:

1. Select Interface → Expert to set the interface to Expert mode. This will expose all of the options offered by Hugin.

2. Select the Add images… button to load your bracketed images. Select your images from the file chooser dialog and click Open.

3. Set the optimal setting for aligning images:

   • Feature Matching Settings: Align image stack
   • Optimize Geometric: Custom parameters
   • Optimize Photometric: Low dynamic range

4. Select the Optimizer tab.

5. In the Image Orientation section, select the following variables for each image:

   • Roll
   • X (TrX) [horizontal translation]
   • Y (TrY) [vertical translation]

   You can Ctrl + left mouse click to enable or disable the variables.

   Note that you do not need to select the parameters for the anchor image:

6. Select Optimize now! and wait for the software to finish the calculations. Select Yes to apply the changes.

7. Select the Stitcher tab.

8. Select the Calculate Field of View button.

9. Select the Calculate Optimal Size button.

10. Select the Fit Crop to Images button.

11. To have the maximum number of post-processing options, select the following image outputs:

    • Panorama Outputs: Exposure fused from any arrangement
      • Format: TIFF
      • Compression: LZW
    • Panorama Outputs: High dynamic range
      • Format: EXR

    • Remapped Images: No exposure correction, low dynamic range

12. Select the Stitch! button and choose a place to save the files. Since Hugin generates quite a few temporary images, save the PTO file in it’s own folder.

Hugin will output the following images:

• a tif file blended by enfuse/enblend
• an HDR image in the EXR format
• the individual images after remapping and without any exposure correction that you can import into the GIMP as layers and blend manually.

You can see the result of the image blended with enblend/enfuse:

With the output images, you can:

Hugin Software

• edit the enfuse/enblend tif file further in the GIMP or RawTherapee
• tone map the EXR file in LuminanceHDR
• manually blend the remapped tif files in the GIMP or PhotoFlow

Image files

• Camera: Olympus E-M10 mark ii
• Lens: Samyang 12mm F2.0

Indoor_Guitars

Download Indoor_Guitars.zip (75MB)

• 5 brackets
• ±0.3 EV increments
• f5.6
• focus at about 1m
• center priority metering
• exposed for guitars, bracketed for the sky, outdoor area, and indoor area
• manual mode (shutter speed recorded in EXIF)
• shot in burst mode, handheld

Outdoor_Beach_Umbrella

Download Outdoor_Beach_Umbrella.zip (62MB)

• 3 brackets
• ±1 EV increments
• f11
• focus at infinity
• center priority metering
• exposed for the water, bracketed for umbrella and sky
• manual mode (shutter speed recorded in EXIF)
• shot in burst mode, handheld

Outdoor_Sunset_Over_Ocean

Download Outdoor_Sunset_Over_Ocean.zip (60MB)

• 3 brackets
• ±1 EV increments
• f11
• focus at infinity
• center priority metering
• exposed for the darker clouds, bracketed for darker water and lighter sky areas and sun
• manual mode (shutter speed recorded in EXIF)
• shot in burst mode, handheld

Hugin Valheim

Licencing Information

• Images created by Isaac I. Ullah, 2016, and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (cba).

Is Hugin Safe

Free/Open Source Photography

Huginn And Muninn Meaning

Unless otherwise noted content on this site, PIXLS.US by Pat David, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Hugin Editor's Review

Hugin is a comprehensive imaging tool for producing panoramic chains that is as useful for the home or casual photographers as it is for professionals. It utilises the same coding as other paid software however it is a free programme to download.

Its function is to meld several photos together to produce one panoramic image, or stitches several of these together to produce overlapping pictures. The results of these processes are very effective and they allow an amateur to achieve the same results as a professional piecing the images together manually. In addition it can detect the camera and the model that you are using which helps to minimise any reduction in the quality of the photographs and prevent distortion.

The interface is initially confusing however once you get to grips with it the functionality is quite straightforward, despite the number of features it possesses. Its assistant provides features such as cropping and image reduction in order to produce the best panoramic image.
Pro's: comprehensive features, excellent results, suitable for amateurs and professionals
Con's: sometimes clumsy interface, is prone to crashing
Conclusion: If producing chain panoramic images is your thing but you don’t want to spend money on the software needed then this is a perfect option that will produce as good if not better images than some fee-charging rivals. The fact that it is also suitable for photographers makes it a good all-rounder, especially if the crashing issues are resolved in future updates.