Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Tutorial 6: Creating Panorama easily with Photomerge

Shooting for creating a panorama is a simple process that involves using a tripod, and to have your camera set to manual mode with the ISO, aperture and shutter speed at one single, and constant setting.
Next I capture the span of one long scene by simply capturing an image and swiveling the tripod head slightly before capturing the following.
*For panoramas, this isn’t a strict method, the images could be captured in any way, following those guides. The method is recommended to have to most accurate result when applying it in Photomerge.

Images I am merging:



-When loading the images, it is best to have the images named and/or follow a sequence, as it will be easier to relocate and select on Photoshop.

First thing I do in Photoshop is select ‘Automate,’ found under ‘File’ on the menu bar. Next I select ‘Photomerge…’ and a window the opens up.

Under ‘Layout’ in the window, I chose to use ‘Auto’ as it allows Photoshop calculate the most accurate positioning, and gives best, over-all accuracy. Under ‘Source Files’ selecting ‘Browse..’, I locate all the images I wish to have in my panorama.

After sourcing my images, below are options to apply while Photoshop forms the panorama, ‘Blend Images Together’ as already ticked, as this tells Photoshop to blend colour and tone while positioning the images. ‘Vignette Removal’ eliminates possible vignetting that may have occurred within the individual images, to blend any dark edges.
‘Geometric Distortion Correction’ is used when distortions are created from an extremely wide lens within the individual images.
In my case, I do not have any wide-angle or vignetting distortions in my images, so I simply leave that section and click ‘OK’ to apply the panorama.

Photoshop then takes a few moments to calculate, and a single, long image then appears with oddly shaped edges, this is due to Photoshop linking the images as the scene ends in one image and begins in the next image, Photoshop may only use a small wedge of an image to continue the panorama, this is simply based on calculating a panned scene.

As my panorama image has bazaar edges, the individual images appear as layers in the layers palette as their separate puzzle pieces. And beside the clipped layers, layer masks have been applied to all layers, this is handy as this allows further editing if required.

-Photoshop may not be always accurate, especially in cases of the images taken with different colours and/or not more accurately lined up when capturing the images, etc.
The as the images appear as layers, this allows them to be moved if needed, for better lining. The layer masks are handy as well, for blending, hiding and/or revealing sections, using the white and black tones with the ‘Brush Tool’ found along the toolbar (or press ‘B’).

Once I am happy with my image, if any adjustments were required (in my case there wasn’t), the next step is to crop out the bazar edges using the ‘Crop Tool’ found along the toolbar (or press ‘C’) and the final result is the panorama.

The last step is to make my panorama one single image, is to merge the layers by selecting “Flatten Image’ found under ‘Layers’ on the menu bar (or press ‘Command’ ‘E’).

The end result, a panorama!
The very last adjustment I did make to my final image was the levels, as the colours appeared off to me and to add a little contrast to the blossom tree.

My final Panorama:



*Even though this method of Photoshop, automatically calculating the image. There are methods of manually creating the panorama, this is achieved by creating a new Photoshop blank document. With a long canvas created from the document, opening each image in Photoshop and creating layers on the new document and manually position each section. Creating layer masks for each layer so that sections can be hidden. The only difference of the Photomerge method is that Photoshop has automatically completed those steps for you, making the task less time-consuming.

-There are some advantages to manually creating the panorama, as you have full control over every decision, which works to be beneficial for some individual who are skillful in Photoshop.

Sources:
-http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/panorama/ All Content © 2013 . Not to be duplicated or redistributed without permission. Photoshop is a trademark of Adobe Systems Inc.

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