| by Patty
Waits Beasley
This is
a fun little project, and one that can be done using a number
of different programs, from Adobe PhotoShop to PaintShop Pro
to image editors specifically designed to incorporate the
stitching process automatically (my personal
preference).
Ever
come across a scene that made you wish you could capture it,
but you just couldn't fit it all into your viewfinder? That's
where panoramics shine. We'll teach you an easy way to capture
the scene and create your own panoramic.
In
order to keep files to a manageable size and allow you to view
this page, all images were reduced in size. Of course, the
more resolution and the bigger the image you can program for
your shots, the better the output final product will be
after you edit/stitch it.
To
start out with, you need a subject. It can be an object you
want to enhance in order to get as much detail as possible, or
it could be a scenic view, like our spectacular
sunsets/sunrises on the Gulf of Mexico or bay systems. For
purposes of our demo, we'll use an image of a Native American
pipe, seen below in the normal way we might shoot it in order
to capture the entire object in one frame:
As
often happens, when a subject is wider than it is tall, one
ends up with a lot of wasted space in the image, and in order
to capture as much of the image as possible, the camera needs
to pull back from the image, which in turn reduces detail and
resolution. Not a very pleasing effect.
Let's
try shooting it in a panoramic style instead. In order to do
this, you'll need to shoot a series of photos, breaking up the
subject into smaller pieces that will be stitched together
later for one big final output image. There are a few rules to
getting good results for each section:
If
you can get close to the subject, pull out and don't use
your zoom any more than you have to. Govern your level of
zoom accordingly if you have to use a flash (as I did in
the above picture) so you don't "white out" the
image by being too close.
Once
you find the combination of zoom and framing you like,
begin shooting the series of pictures. Shoot the first one
at the leftmost edge of the image, leaving some margin
room at the left (see first section image below).
Continue
shooting your series, without changing any settings on
your camera. Leave your zoom alone; once you set it, use that
same setting for the rest of the shots. As you shoot each
successive image, move the camera a little to the right,
keeping some overlap from the previous frame, while taking in
new area to the right.
Which
brings us to the
next important rule: leave a minimum of one third of your
previous framing in this next shot. This is very
important, as it allows maximum overlap when you (or your
program) stitch the images together. In the image below,
note how the dark feather draping to the left is included
in the framing of the second image. The more the overlap,
the cleaner, more accurate and seamless your stitching
will be.
Continue
shooting your series in the same manner. Below are the
five images I shot to capture the entire pipe, leaving 1/3
to 1/2 image overlap in each successive image.
I've
reduced the five images even further in size so you can see
exactly how they line up side by side. You can see how the
overlap works now... how each successive image retains the
last third of the previous image.
Okay,
so there's your series. Now, what do you do with it? If you
want to stitch them manually (not something for the
fainthearted!), simply open your favorite editing program of
choice, and open your first two image files, find the common
overlap, cut the excess from the second image and line it up
to the right side of the first. Continue until all your images
are stitched together. A blurring tool lightly run down the
seam between each edit point between images will help soften
the stitch effect. Put all the pieces together, then use the
editing program's crop tool to shape up the final
image.
If
you're like me, you don't have the time or inclination to
spend hours at the computer, trying to match up those edges
and blur them without making it look too obvious that the
image is
a paste-up. I recommend using an editing program that has a
stitching engine built into it, like JASC's
After Shot, MGI's
PhotoSuite, etc. For this demo, I used AfterShot, which
uses Enroute's ImageSynthesis engine.
The
final output of a automatic stitching program like AfterShot's
is a night and day difference from manually stitching files
together. Blended areas are seamlessly overlapped and it's
very difficult to tell just where seams are, unless lighting
differences make it obvious (a common aftereffect of shooting
panoramics in pieces). Here's the output file of our stitching
exercise:
Quite a
difference! And you'll note you'll have a lot more detail in
the stitched image than in the single image taken at the
beginning of this article.
(Cherokee
pipe
courtesy of Ron "Walks In Smoke" Teel)
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