Microsoft ICE - Free Panorama Stitching Software

Thanks Chris and Peterj. I have used it for years. About 4 years ago, I had forgotten about it and Peter reminded me. 

ICE is great software! As noted, it will stitch when others fail. The best feature is is ability to stich photos taken in a grid. This has two advantages. 1) I often walk with just a telephoto lens so I can take a scenery shot by taking many photos in a grid and 2) It effectively can convert your 24-MP camera into a 200-MP camera and you could make a print a large enough to fit in huge wall...if you wanted. 

When shooting a grid, I try to pre-think how the grid with be shot. I shoot with 30 to 50% overlap. The camera should be set on M mode including ISO and WB...100% manual: speed, aperture, ISO and WB. When the raw images are opened in ACR they are all adjusted the same (levels etc). When opened in PSE they are reduced in size (process multiple files) for the stitch but they could be left as original size.  

This is a 9-shot grid image.  


Helps to be crazy. I was walking in the valley and was smitten by this scene (as ordinary as it is) and took 60 (yes, 60) images with the 200-600-mm lens set to 200 mm focal length.