Rick Baker
07-16-2005, 06:42 PM
http://www.rickbakerimages.com/photography_advice/photomerge_panoramics.html
Adobe added a new feature to Photoshop CS called "Photomerge" that makes it easy to make or "stitch" together panoramas from side by side images. We are going to show you how to use this great feature in this step-by-step guide.
First, we are going to give you some tips to get the raw images needed by Photoshop to make great panoramas. If you follow these guidelines, you will get much better results.
1. Use a tripod.
2. Make sure your camera is level and pan left and right while staying level. Use a tripod head that allows you to lock in the height.
3. Use the same focal length for each shot you plan on using to make a panorama.
4. Use the same settings for each shot, trying to get the same exposure, e.g. f/16 aperture 1/125th sec on all shots or use the same camera mode, e.g. landscape mode.
5. Don't use wide angle lenses or lenses that distort images.
6. Overlap a good deal in each shot. Maybe about 20-30% overlap. Every shot should have mostly new image detail of course, but some overlap will help Photoshop put your images together better.
Don't be too discouraged if you don't/can't follow all these tips, you may still be able to get good panoramas, but the more of the above you do, the better chances you have on getting a winning "stitch."
These are the three images, the raw materials, I am going to use to make a panorama. I used a Canon D60, a tripod, used the same focal length, the same settings and I just panned left and right. Unfortunately, I had a trigger grip tripod head, but I tried my best to remain level while panning left and right.
To get to Adobe Photoshop's new, "slick", feature, I need to go to the "File" menu, slide down to "Automate" and then slide over and down to "Photomerge".
After selecting "Photomerge", I am presented with this dialog box. It's asking me for the "Source Files", the raw materials, it needs to make the panorama. I made sure "Open files" was selected in the "Use" field, so I get to select from the three files I have opened in Photoshop. I "Ctrl-clicked" each file listed to highlight them and select them. I also made sure "Attempt to Automatically Arrange Source Images" was checked at the bottom. With this option checked, Photomerge will do most of the work for me by trying to put the files together in order seamlessly. If I uncheck this option, I will have to manually try to arrange the source files. I'll click "OK" to accept these options and continue on.
After clicking "OK", I get this dialog box. Since I checked the "Attempt to Automatically Arrange Source Images" option, Photomerge arranged the images as best as it can automatically. I get a preview of what Photomerge will do with the source images when I click "OK." I am going to keep the default settings, "Normal" selected and "Snap to Image" checked.
If I go up to the Navigator section of this dialog box in the upper-right, I can increase or decrease the zoom in the preview box. I dragged the slider to zoom in on the preview to get a better view.
There's a nice feature of Photomerge, called "Advanced Blending." It helps to match the exposure and colors of each image and blend them together to get a seamless, even "stitch." I am going to enable that feature by checking "Advanced Blending" under "Composition Settings." Then I am going to click the "Preview" button to get a preview of how well this blending will work.
This is a preview of what the panorama will look like with "Advanced Blending" enabled. Notice the diagonal lines are blended in better. The diagonal line on the left of the middle shot is completely blended in now. I think the height of the middle shot might have been a little lower than the 2 shots on the sides. This is definitely what I want, so I will leave "Advanced Blending" checked and click "Exit Preview" to exit the "Advanced Blending" preview.
Ok, we are back to the main preview area. I would have clicked "OK" to proceed and start the Photomerge while in the "Advanced Blending" preview, but I want to emphasize something that you shouldn't do here.
Do not check "Keep as Layers" in the lower-right hand corner. The next screen shot will illustrate why.
This is the result of what you will get if you check "Keep as Layers." Not very good in my opinion. Not compared to what you will get if you don't check "Keep as Layers", which you'll see in the next screen shot.
Here is the result when I don't check "Keep as Layers." Much better.
Photomerge did a pretty good job "stitching" the photos together. We are left with a few minor problems to correct though. First thing to do is to crop. We'll start with the automatic "Crop and Straighten Photos" feature. To do this, I will go to the "File" menu and scroll down to "Automate" and scroll over and down to "Crop and Straighten Photos."
The "Crop and Straighten Photos" feature did some cropping for us, but there is still more cropping to be done manually. I could have skipped the auto crop feature, but it can be very useful in many situations(like to crop and straighten scans), so I thought I would point it out in case you aren't aware of it. I will select the "Crop" tool to manually crop the rest. I can do this by clicking on the "Crop" tool icon on the toolbar(it looks kinda like a square with overlapping lines) or just hit the "C" key.
I will manually crop this image with the "Crop" tool. Once selected, I left-click and drag around the part of the image I want to keep. You can see the bounding box in the screen shot below surrounding the good part of the image, not the black. When I have only the part of the image I want to keep selected, I just hit the "Enter" key or right-click and click "Crop."
Here's our image after cropping. Our panorama is coming along nicely. Photomerge did most of the work, but a few minor adjustments need to be made.
I'll start by increasing the brightness and contrast a little. I can do this by going to the "Image" menu, scroll down to "Adjustments" and slide over and down to "Brightness/Contrast." Some may prefer another method, like using "Levels" and that is fine, but this works fine for me.
I am going to increase the Brightness by 11% and the Contrast by 9%. This makes the image look and stand out better, more like what the actual scene looked like.
While we are at it, in the near vicinity, is the "Hue/Saturation" controls. I think I will add a little saturation to my photo. I go to the "Image" menu, slide down to "Adjustments" and slide over and down to "Hue/Saturation."
I am going to add 4% saturation to make it pop off the screen a little more. The increased saturation and contrast helps give the image more of a "Velvia" look, similar to the popular Velvia slide film I like to use when shooting with 35mm film.
Sharpening the image a little couldn't hurt. To do this, I go to the "Filter" menu, slide down to "Sharpen" and then slide over and down to "Unsharp Mask." The name is misleading, but is really what I want to do some sharpening.
I am going to use an Amount of 50% to sharpen this photo up a little bit.
We still have one major problem with the photo here, but it isn't too difficult to remedy with the power of Adobe Photoshop's retouching tools. There's a diagonal band across the image that is darker than the rest of the image.
There are many ways to correct this problem. Maybe selecting the area and using the "Brightness/Contrast" tool to increase the brightness to match the rest of the photo would work, but I am going to start off by using the "Patch" tool. The "Patch" tool may be accessed from the toolbar on the left. You may not have the "Patch" icon visible. The "Spot Healing Brush" tool is shown in place of the "Patch" tool by default, so you may see a bandage icon where the "Patch" tool should be, 4 down from the top on the left. If you don't see a "Patch" icon, left click and hold down on the icon that is the fourth one down on the left and then drag down to the "Patch" tool. Another way to access the "Patch" tool is to hit "Shift+J" and continue to hit "Shift+J" until you see the "Patch" tool appear in the toolbar.
With the "Patch" tool selected, left-click and drag a selection around the darker part at the the top above the clouds.
When you have finished the selection, left click on it and drag it over to the right to sample the lighter section of the sky that matches the rest of the photo.
Release the button and notice the improvement the "Patch" tool made.
Press CTRL-D to Deselect. As you can see, there is still work to be done at the top.
I am going to zoom in on the area and I'm going to choose the "Clone Stamp" tool to fix up the rest of the problems. The "Clone Stamp" tool can be accessed by clicking on the Stamp icon on the toolbar to the left or hitting the "S" key.
I am going to sample a good area of the sky with the "Clone Stamp" tool and clone it on to the bad part. I sample the "good part", by holding down the "Alt" key while clicking on the good part with the "Clone Stamp" tool. Then I release the "Alt" key and click on the "bad part" to clone the good part on to it.
I repeat the cloning process, replacing the bad parts, until I'm happy.
I will use the same technique I used at the top on the middle and bottom of the dark section.
I'm finished retouching, so I think I'll sharpen the image up a little more adding 50% Amount with the "Unsharp Mask" tool.
I'm happy with the state of the image now, though some more work could be done. What a nice panoramic!
Article by Rick and Jeremy Baker
Adobe added a new feature to Photoshop CS called "Photomerge" that makes it easy to make or "stitch" together panoramas from side by side images. We are going to show you how to use this great feature in this step-by-step guide.
First, we are going to give you some tips to get the raw images needed by Photoshop to make great panoramas. If you follow these guidelines, you will get much better results.
1. Use a tripod.
2. Make sure your camera is level and pan left and right while staying level. Use a tripod head that allows you to lock in the height.
3. Use the same focal length for each shot you plan on using to make a panorama.
4. Use the same settings for each shot, trying to get the same exposure, e.g. f/16 aperture 1/125th sec on all shots or use the same camera mode, e.g. landscape mode.
5. Don't use wide angle lenses or lenses that distort images.
6. Overlap a good deal in each shot. Maybe about 20-30% overlap. Every shot should have mostly new image detail of course, but some overlap will help Photoshop put your images together better.
Don't be too discouraged if you don't/can't follow all these tips, you may still be able to get good panoramas, but the more of the above you do, the better chances you have on getting a winning "stitch."
These are the three images, the raw materials, I am going to use to make a panorama. I used a Canon D60, a tripod, used the same focal length, the same settings and I just panned left and right. Unfortunately, I had a trigger grip tripod head, but I tried my best to remain level while panning left and right.
To get to Adobe Photoshop's new, "slick", feature, I need to go to the "File" menu, slide down to "Automate" and then slide over and down to "Photomerge".
After selecting "Photomerge", I am presented with this dialog box. It's asking me for the "Source Files", the raw materials, it needs to make the panorama. I made sure "Open files" was selected in the "Use" field, so I get to select from the three files I have opened in Photoshop. I "Ctrl-clicked" each file listed to highlight them and select them. I also made sure "Attempt to Automatically Arrange Source Images" was checked at the bottom. With this option checked, Photomerge will do most of the work for me by trying to put the files together in order seamlessly. If I uncheck this option, I will have to manually try to arrange the source files. I'll click "OK" to accept these options and continue on.
After clicking "OK", I get this dialog box. Since I checked the "Attempt to Automatically Arrange Source Images" option, Photomerge arranged the images as best as it can automatically. I get a preview of what Photomerge will do with the source images when I click "OK." I am going to keep the default settings, "Normal" selected and "Snap to Image" checked.
If I go up to the Navigator section of this dialog box in the upper-right, I can increase or decrease the zoom in the preview box. I dragged the slider to zoom in on the preview to get a better view.
There's a nice feature of Photomerge, called "Advanced Blending." It helps to match the exposure and colors of each image and blend them together to get a seamless, even "stitch." I am going to enable that feature by checking "Advanced Blending" under "Composition Settings." Then I am going to click the "Preview" button to get a preview of how well this blending will work.
This is a preview of what the panorama will look like with "Advanced Blending" enabled. Notice the diagonal lines are blended in better. The diagonal line on the left of the middle shot is completely blended in now. I think the height of the middle shot might have been a little lower than the 2 shots on the sides. This is definitely what I want, so I will leave "Advanced Blending" checked and click "Exit Preview" to exit the "Advanced Blending" preview.
Ok, we are back to the main preview area. I would have clicked "OK" to proceed and start the Photomerge while in the "Advanced Blending" preview, but I want to emphasize something that you shouldn't do here.
Do not check "Keep as Layers" in the lower-right hand corner. The next screen shot will illustrate why.
This is the result of what you will get if you check "Keep as Layers." Not very good in my opinion. Not compared to what you will get if you don't check "Keep as Layers", which you'll see in the next screen shot.
Here is the result when I don't check "Keep as Layers." Much better.
Photomerge did a pretty good job "stitching" the photos together. We are left with a few minor problems to correct though. First thing to do is to crop. We'll start with the automatic "Crop and Straighten Photos" feature. To do this, I will go to the "File" menu and scroll down to "Automate" and scroll over and down to "Crop and Straighten Photos."
The "Crop and Straighten Photos" feature did some cropping for us, but there is still more cropping to be done manually. I could have skipped the auto crop feature, but it can be very useful in many situations(like to crop and straighten scans), so I thought I would point it out in case you aren't aware of it. I will select the "Crop" tool to manually crop the rest. I can do this by clicking on the "Crop" tool icon on the toolbar(it looks kinda like a square with overlapping lines) or just hit the "C" key.
I will manually crop this image with the "Crop" tool. Once selected, I left-click and drag around the part of the image I want to keep. You can see the bounding box in the screen shot below surrounding the good part of the image, not the black. When I have only the part of the image I want to keep selected, I just hit the "Enter" key or right-click and click "Crop."
Here's our image after cropping. Our panorama is coming along nicely. Photomerge did most of the work, but a few minor adjustments need to be made.
I'll start by increasing the brightness and contrast a little. I can do this by going to the "Image" menu, scroll down to "Adjustments" and slide over and down to "Brightness/Contrast." Some may prefer another method, like using "Levels" and that is fine, but this works fine for me.
I am going to increase the Brightness by 11% and the Contrast by 9%. This makes the image look and stand out better, more like what the actual scene looked like.
While we are at it, in the near vicinity, is the "Hue/Saturation" controls. I think I will add a little saturation to my photo. I go to the "Image" menu, slide down to "Adjustments" and slide over and down to "Hue/Saturation."
I am going to add 4% saturation to make it pop off the screen a little more. The increased saturation and contrast helps give the image more of a "Velvia" look, similar to the popular Velvia slide film I like to use when shooting with 35mm film.
Sharpening the image a little couldn't hurt. To do this, I go to the "Filter" menu, slide down to "Sharpen" and then slide over and down to "Unsharp Mask." The name is misleading, but is really what I want to do some sharpening.
I am going to use an Amount of 50% to sharpen this photo up a little bit.
We still have one major problem with the photo here, but it isn't too difficult to remedy with the power of Adobe Photoshop's retouching tools. There's a diagonal band across the image that is darker than the rest of the image.
There are many ways to correct this problem. Maybe selecting the area and using the "Brightness/Contrast" tool to increase the brightness to match the rest of the photo would work, but I am going to start off by using the "Patch" tool. The "Patch" tool may be accessed from the toolbar on the left. You may not have the "Patch" icon visible. The "Spot Healing Brush" tool is shown in place of the "Patch" tool by default, so you may see a bandage icon where the "Patch" tool should be, 4 down from the top on the left. If you don't see a "Patch" icon, left click and hold down on the icon that is the fourth one down on the left and then drag down to the "Patch" tool. Another way to access the "Patch" tool is to hit "Shift+J" and continue to hit "Shift+J" until you see the "Patch" tool appear in the toolbar.
With the "Patch" tool selected, left-click and drag a selection around the darker part at the the top above the clouds.
When you have finished the selection, left click on it and drag it over to the right to sample the lighter section of the sky that matches the rest of the photo.
Release the button and notice the improvement the "Patch" tool made.
Press CTRL-D to Deselect. As you can see, there is still work to be done at the top.
I am going to zoom in on the area and I'm going to choose the "Clone Stamp" tool to fix up the rest of the problems. The "Clone Stamp" tool can be accessed by clicking on the Stamp icon on the toolbar to the left or hitting the "S" key.
I am going to sample a good area of the sky with the "Clone Stamp" tool and clone it on to the bad part. I sample the "good part", by holding down the "Alt" key while clicking on the good part with the "Clone Stamp" tool. Then I release the "Alt" key and click on the "bad part" to clone the good part on to it.
I repeat the cloning process, replacing the bad parts, until I'm happy.
I will use the same technique I used at the top on the middle and bottom of the dark section.
I'm finished retouching, so I think I'll sharpen the image up a little more adding 50% Amount with the "Unsharp Mask" tool.
I'm happy with the state of the image now, though some more work could be done. What a nice panoramic!
Article by Rick and Jeremy Baker