Create stunning panoramas with PhotoStitch
Combine multiple shots into a panoramic scene with the help of Digital Photo Professional
Seeing a beautiful landscape stretching out before you, then realising you'll only be able to capture a fraction of it in one photo, is frustrating. However, there's a simple solution: take a series of shots then put them all together to make a big, panoramic image. That way, you can capture the whole 180∞ scene.Many image-editing packages, including Photoshop, have built-in options to automatically merge multiple photos. But this issue we'll show you how to do it in PhotoStitch, the free software Canon bundles with its new cameras. You'll find PhotoStitch (and Digital Photo Professional) on the Canon disc that came with your Canon D-SLR.
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1. Select your images
We've supplied nine vertical images of the Eden Project on our Video Disc. Why vertical? If you shoot horizontally, you'll end up with a long, thin panorama. Shooting vertically, you need more (six to nine) shots, but you'll get a larger, higher resolution file.
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2. Arrange the files
Launch PhotoStitch. Under the first tab (Select and Arrangement), go to Open Images and select the nine source files. Arrange them in order by dragging and dropping. Click the second tab, Merge. Under Merge Settings, select Panning (Scenery)
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3. Set the focal length
Enter the focal length in Merge Settings to enable PhotoStitch to factor in lens distortion. This info is shown in the metadata (File > FileInfo). It needs to be '35mm film equivalent', so multiply the focal length figure by your D-SLR's crop factor.
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4. Start stitching
When all nine images are in place and the merge information is complete, press the Start button. PhotoStitch will combine your images. Click Display Seams to see where each image has been overlapped. Zoom in to see if the images have lined up accurately.
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5. Tidy up
To make adjustments, click on the green seam and another screen will appear where you can manually drag and line up the two images. Click OK. Our pictures were tricky to line up because of the hexagons, but PhotoStitch did a pretty good job.
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6. Final adjustments
When you're happy with your panorama, click the third tab, Save. PhotoStitch automatically provides accurate crop marks, which you can adjust if necessary. Press Save. The image can now be opened in Photoshop if you want to make other changes.
Posted by Peter Travers on Friday, Jul 2009 at 03:00pm GMT. First appeared: PhotoPlus magazine
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