Easy Landsat 9 Band Combination and Pansharpening with Blend Modes

The shiny new Landsat 9 earth imaging satellite is now live and beaming down glorious data to us. Here's how to grab fresh Landsat layers and merge the bands together into a full color composite, and also how to do a mega-easy version of pansharpening with the higher resolution panchromatic band, in ArcGIS Pro.
Check this blog post for some more background and a list of the steps: www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/prod...
Download the latest Landsat 9 data: earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
Learn more about the available bands: www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-are-ba...
Thanks to Joshua Stevens for his help: www.joshuastevens.net/
Learn from The Captain about how weird (and imaginary) color is, and how we process electromagnetic wavelengths and interpret them in our brains as colors: • CD / Color
Check out some other social channels where I share how-to's and updates on random map adventures:
adventuresinmapping.com
www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/auth...
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/ johnmnelson
/ johnmnelson

[@timjohnston7958]

It's like watching the magic and mastery of Bob Ross. Excellent tutorial!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Wow thanks Tim!

[@jopa9626]

Great work, the background music is soothing very well.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

thanks!

[@pipejfr]

Excelent. Thanks again Nelson and Landsat team.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks!

[@colemanvollrath7180]

Thanks, John! This is awesome!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

thanks Coleman!

[@khwajawalizada2197]

Excellent demo.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks!

[@rburriwar28]

excellent job!!!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks!

[@dominiontheory]

I'm all like "hey John how do i do this thing?" and he tells me and then I'm like, "what about this?" And then i know and it was fun and quick and I don't have to worry about it.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

i love it!

[@dominiontheory]

@John Nelson Maps super fun to watch your videos and I definitely wish I could ask for your help! I really like the way you explain things :) Thanks for enjoying this weird niche in a way that helps others. Very cool

[@naufalfikri5422]

thanks for your video

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@naufalfikri5422 hope it’s useful!

[@khwajawalizada2197]

Very nteresting !!!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thank you

[@cesarsuarezh2176]

It is awesome!! Jhon could you make more videos like this and show us the different kind of blends and their applications.. Thans very muchh from Piedecuesta!!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

thanks! working with the developer of the blend modes now on a blog post like that! good call.

[@franzpc]

Excellent, this is one of the best tutorials on your channel. Can I do a similar one on my channel in Spanish?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks! Sure of course

[@aseeradi2269]

Great .. thank you

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Have fun!

[@aseeradi2269]

@@JohnNelsonMaps can do same thing with sentenil 2 ?

[@jubraeelibrahim989]

Brilliant

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks!

[@adben]

Brilliant job, John. Just a quick one; can the MTL band set be used in lieu of panchromatic sharpening

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

thanks Ben! i don't understand, MTL is a metadata file.

[@audreyrhodes8616]

This has been really helpful, thank you! If a person is working with multiple days of landsat data for the same aoi, can they use this same process with a time lapse of sort, or would you have to edit each day individually?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

thanks Audrey! if it's the same AOI with multiple dates, i'd recommend using the same parameters on all the images, to isolate the variables for a fair comparison. i would have to do it manually to each date's image but maybe someone more technical than i am could write a script or function chain.

[@nicolebryant3440]

Maybe a newbie question here! I was hoping to see if I can track rather small and subtle changes that occurred on the surface over over a 60 day period. I was able to follow along and get some really cool images put together, but I'm not able to 'zoom' in as far as I need to to really see if/what is happening at the project location. Is there something I'm missing or doing wrong in Arc? Or does this exceed the capabilities of the Landsat 8/9 images. I've already learned a lot from this one video, I'll definitely be saving it to reference again!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

hi Nicole! the spatial resolution of Landsat is moderate. not as high resolution as you may need. most bands are 30 meters per pixel and the higher res optical band is 15 meters. you might consider Sentinel-2 imagery, which is slightly higher resolution. To get higher resolution than that will carry a cost but if that's ok, you can check out Planet Labs.

[@Chief.Surveyor.AliQassim]

THANKS

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

You're welcome!

[@Chief.Surveyor.AliQassim]

@@JohnNelsonMaps My dear brother, I have a satellite image of all band from 1 to 11. How can I get the clarity of the image? Do I follow the same method because I only want the images? How can I get the clarity?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@Chief.Surveyor.AliQassim band 8 will be the higher resolution panchromatic band. i add this to the map at this point in the video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3bQmplsZs6reLs

[@Chief.Surveyor.AliQassim]

@@JohnNelsonMaps This means a lot to me thanks

[@gdurkee]

John, great tutorial as always. Problem on my side is when I try to bring in a L1 B8 (specifically from California LC09_L1GT_140211_20220301_20220301_02_T2_B8.TIF) it just renders as a sheet of grey bands. The L2 (B2 - B5) have all come in representing identifiable terrain. This has now happened with two B8 files. Help?? (Also I'm trying to figure out how to fiddle such that both the greens of the forest and snow of the Sierra work but, unless you have some brilliant specific thought, it just seems like more fiddling...). But, anyway, would appreciate a thought on what's going on with fuzzy grey B8. Thanks!

[@gdurkee]

Ah ha and duh (hides head in shame...). Gotta look at the thumbnail to see if it's an actual image vs. grey stripes (nighttime image?). Anyway, stand down!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

ah ok! i had read this question a couple times and was just coming back to see if i could help out. glad you got it sorted!

[@ibrahimmohammed3484]

2:15 wait what?! 78 years?!!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

I do feel old sometimes

[@MontielGT23]

Why does Landsat 9 level 2 imagery miss band 9? And why arent they available in collection Level 1?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

i don't have insights into that, sorry.

[@pierre-manchon]

for satellite imagery you really should try SNAP by ESA it does wonders

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Ah thanks I’ll look into this!

[@skyyyisss]

I want to ask you, do you know how to do radiometric correction and atmospheric correction of landsat 9?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

i have not dug deeply enough into Landsat (since college anyway) to be much help with that, i'm sorry!

[@Ross175]

My question is, does anyone know how can we export these multiple layers as a final geoTiff that preserves all of the tweaking we have done? I actually did accomplish doing this once, but have not been able to replicate it since!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Yes, in the share tap is an export button. Choose geotiff as the format.

[@Ross175]

@@JohnNelsonMaps Ah! Thank you so much, John!

[@elisaurysuarez5927]

Excelent. Great!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

thanks!

[@ibrahimmohammed3484]

i used to be afraid of playing with bands because i always wanted to stick with what the reality actually looks like but now i think that " reality " is never a thing when i see satellite compositions with more saturation and others with more contrast etc...

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Yes it’s all according to what looks best.

[@karelvancamp4807]

Few species other than primates can see red. Insects can see ultraviolet. Vision is not reality, more a looking glass/filter to highlight aspects. Look into other bands or combinations from landsat.

[@shankeyahirwar6936]

How can we map "chlorophyll a" concentration in water bodies in landsat 8 and landsat 9 ?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

while i don't know, if you reach out to Keith VanGraafeiland at Esri, he would certainly know.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

also here's this: www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=21b6b8cf5ce642f0841085aea1db51a4

[@marcoamores6481]

I can't find the tool Layer Blend 😞

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

It’s a tab that’s highlighted up in the ribbon when your layer is selected. They’ve renamed the tab lately and I can’t recall what it’s called, but it’s there.

[@c.ravindra3626]

sir, if you have a python code to stack(b2,b3,b4 and b8) please post it.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

i do not, but if you write it please feel free to share it here in the comments.

[@carmenquintin9341]

???????