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Friday, April 01, 2011

DSP’s 7th Birthday!!= A Goodie a Day from Me!!


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Its DSPs 7th birthday from today April1!!- so for each of the next 7 days I will try and post some little goodie on my blog .

Today I’m posting a simple tutorial for creating a great panorama image in Photoshop

Photomerge in Photoshop CS3+

This short tutorial shows the wonderful results you can get in creating a panorama from several separate photos.

Whilst the best results are always obtained by using a tripod and setting your white balance and exposure before taking your first photo with the examples I am going to use this was not the case.

I can also add a couple of hints Ive learned from others regarding taking Panoramas.

Before you take your first shot – put your hand up in front of the lens and click – and then again at the end – this way you know which shots to select when you are going through the thousands you’ve taken!!Secondly – ( and I didn’t do it in this example – turn your camera around and take your panoramas in portrait orientation – that way you get more “ real estate” per shot )

These photos were taken hand held and in fact were taken inside through glass while I walked around a viewing platform.

The results by using the Photomerge tool are quite astounding as I think you will agree .

Here are the photos which I want to merge into a panorama

Photomerge1

There is a significant overlap in these photos which makes a successful result a little more likely.

To create your panorama choose File – Automate – Photomerge

You can choose at this point to add open files if you already have your files open , or you can choose to browse to find the files .

There are various types of panoramas you can try – Ive used Auto in this instance and let Photoshop decide where to place the photographs but try out some of the other options and see if you get a more desirable result

Photomerge2

Photoshop CS4 which is what I am using has more options in the photomerge feature but it works really well in CS3 as well .

I have selected the vignette removal and geometric distortion correction which will reduce the effect of any dark vignetting in each separate image which might have occurred if you had a lens hood on for instance or just a natural vignetting that might occur with some lenses, and the Geometric Distortion correction will reduce any lens distortion that may have occurred.

Photoshop then automatically places all your images in one new file in separate layers.

Its next step is to align the photos based on the photos content. Photoshop will analyse each photo and move and resize each layer to align them into a panorama.

Its next step if you have chosen the Blend option is to blend the photos togeter to give a seamless result.

It does this by masking parts of each photo to show only the part needed

The result can take a few minutes depending on how many photos you have selected and the size of the images.

Photomerge3 

At this point now you can crop your final image and perform any other final adjustments you wish to make.

For this image I am going to use a perspective transformation to enlarge the left hand edge of the panorama , and a slight rotation to the left to allow me to make my crop as effective as possible.

I do this after merging all the layers.

Here is the result of my finished Panorama, the entire process only took less than 10 minutes and the result is very satisfying.

Photomerge4

 

You can download a PDF version of this tutorial here

5 comments:

  1. REAL NICE TUT Laura! Thanks!
    HUGS
    Dinah

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  2. Thanks Lauren! Love the tip about the hand in front, so simple but will make SUCH a difference when searching for the right set of photos!!

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  3. I forgot all about the awesome freebies you are giving away during Birthday week. So glad you posted a note in your chat thread! I love this tutorial. Thanks!

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  4. Cathiemarie6:34 pm

    I just posted a LO in your gallery using this technique, which I think totally rocks. Thank you so much for teaching this trick to me Lauren. I love it. (As you already know).

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  5. Thank you so much for this post. I want to let you know that I posted a link to your blog in CBH Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, under the Page 7 post on Apr. 01, 2011. Thanks again.

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