Photoshop Panoramic Photomerge

History

Creating panoramic photography is nothing new. More than 160 years ago, Joseph Puchberger was credited in 1843 for patenting the first hand crank panoramic camera. The following year, Friedrich Von Martens releases the prototype for a far superior panoramic camera. Von Martens camera could capture a 150 degree sweep with less distortion and enhanced clarity.

Creating the initial panoramic images were time consuming and expensive. Cost alone prohibited many early samples being created. Of the limited images that were created, only a few initial samples are still in circulation.

Panoramic photo, San Francisco from Rincon Hill, c.1851. Photographed by Martin Behrman, Gelatin Silver print

Panoramic photo, San Francisco from Rincon Hill, c.1851. Photographed by Martin Behrman, Gelatin Silver print

With the invention in 1888 of flexible film the photography world was revolutionized. Flexible film did for 20th century photography, what digital cameras did for the 21st century. Panoramic photography gained the majority of the benefits available from the new flexible film format. The popularity of the early cameras saw dozens of camera manufactoriesrelease their own brand of panoramic camera. Consequentially, the following century the market would be flooded with innumerable panoramic camera models.

Since 1888, as many different devices as methods have been tried to capture the prefect panoramic image. Some of the more interesting methods include; strapping a slow-shutter camera to a carrier pigeon, using a rotating lens or stitching single images together with advanced software Photomerge techniques.  Essentially the latter Photomerge techniques incites me. 

Photomerge techniques

Since 1997 I have experimented with various Photomerge techniques. My initial interest began as many digital media projects do; I needed to resolve a problem.

While managing a student computer lab I quickly recognized that the most challenging problem that the students faced was having their work digitized.

At the time, digital cameras were on the verge of new technology, and were often not powerful enough to capture large high-resolution digital images. A flatbed scanner was generally the preferred method for creating over-sized high-resolution digitized image files. At best, most flatbed scanners could scan the equivalent of a legal size sheet of page.

One of the challenges I faced was that most of the projects that I needed to digitize were considerably larger than a standard legal size page. Due to the size restrictions of the scanner, items larger than the scanner could in divided into separate manageable segments. The separate digital image would be carefully stitched together using an assortment of tools available from the in Adobe Photoshop software package.   

As digital cameras improved, we started to see stitching capabilities included as a camera feature, with varied and unpredictable results. Better results were possible by merging the digital images manually in Photoshop with a clever eye, the layer blends, easer and the clone stamp tool.  

Click to view full size - Example of using Adobe Photoshop Photomerge

How to use Adobe Photoshop Photomerge

The Photomerge tool makes creating panoramic images easy and fun. However, for the Photomerge to work well there are some simply guidelines on how to capture your original images.

Guidelines for shooting a panoramic photograph

There is no limit to how many photos you may use, including vertical and hozitonal rows. 

After shooting the photos, capture digital photos from your camera to your hard drive. It is often a good idea to organize your images files prior to bringing them into Adobe Photoshop. Create a New Folder for each group of photos that you plan to include in your panoramic image.

Create a Basic Panoramic Photograph in Photoshop

The Photomerge dialog window will open, with five different options available:

Auto: Basic Panoramic / Interactive Layout: Creative Collage

Experiment with the five different layout tools to see the different effects that are achievable.

For a Basic panoramic image the “Auto” setting will work well.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Photomerge tool will scan each images and piece as much of the image together as possible. Processing the images can be quite process intensive and slow. The total number of single images and the image resolution will impact the time to complete the task. While progressing imges you will not be able to use Photoshop. It is also a good suggestion to not use other software while running the Photomerge Tool. For complex collages created with the INteractive Layout tool, allow for extra processing time. Twenty minutes in not an unusual length of time for the Photomerge to complete - but, can certainly be longer. 

Create a Photo Collage Effect in Photoshop

The first steps to create a Photo Collage are the same as creating a basic panoramic image only this time we will select the Interactive Layout radio button, insert of the Auto radio button.

To Create Creative Collage Select the Interactive Layout

Early one foggy morning I photographed the reflection of a dead tree that was partially submerged in water. By using the Interactive Tool I could freely rearrange the position, stacking order, blend effect and the rotation of each photo. 

One advantage with the Interactive Layout tool within Photomerge is the excluded images are stacked above the artwork. Excluded images can dragged into the collage and positioned anywhere within your image.

Interactive Dialog Box - freely arrange your image collage.

Photomerge can create interesting image collages

The building collage was created from 10 images of different buildings in Atlanta. When selecting the images to use in Photomerge, I first looked for photos that had a silimar tonal value. Then I reviewed the photographs for silimar patterns. The more you give Photomerge to work with the more interesting the results. It can be quite fun to.

For this technique to create good results, you first want to select images with similar textures and complementary colour tones. If you select images that have a dramatic color difference, Photoshop will omit images that it does not recognize as being part of the group, and will only include images that it can identify with similar tonality value or patterns.

St Anne's Cathedral (Belfast, Northern Ireland).

 

Using the Auto Layout Merge Tool I selected seven photos. Adobe Photoshop Photomerge tool did a nice job blending the photos together.

What to consider when creating a college

 

For photos that do not share the same tonal value or share a similar texture, use the Interactive Tool Merge Tool to control how the images are blend together. The Interactive Tool Merge Tool works well with most every assortment of texture or color.

Hope you enjoyed the Photomerge article. Be sure to post your comments or questions. I’d love to include any samples you might create. 

Gary Crossey
Nov 08

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