Creating panoramic photos for fun and profit.

Ok guys boring Saturday so I was fooling around with my camera. I have a simple point and click (S3IS) so there isn't much I can do. There are no takers for my fully functional kidneys (slightly used) so I have to do without a DSLR. Most of you guys have killer box configurations (well atleast in your signatures ) and really huge ass screens. Wouldn't it be nifty if you could have a wallpaper that is personalized, tweaked and sized to fit your monitors?

Items Required:

One camera (I have a Canon S3IS, but any other point and click will do too)
One cheap tripod (Optional if you have really steady hands )
One copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Compulsory, CS3 should work too but no exp with it)
A little patience

Process:

Actually the process is quite easy and doesn't require much work. Find a nice place to shoot from. Preferably an open field, mountain-top or the roof of your house (the last one might get you into trouble if you have pretty neighbours). Position your camera in such a way that it has maximum coverage of the scene in front of you (i.e. you can see the entire panoramic view by turning the camera at 45 degree angles around a vertical axis).

Now start from one end of the view and take a picture. Rotate a little (not more than 45 degrees) and take another. Take as many pictures as you like within say a field of view of 110 degrees (Have a look at the figure which shows how images should overlap). The idea is take a picture, locate some easily identifiable edge on the right hand side of the image and then turn the camera a little to the right. Repeat so as to capture the entire scene. Ensure that the scene doesn't go beyond 90 degrees on either side, as you will get a royally skewed finish.



An alternative method is to take a picture and move the tripod along a straight line to your right and then take the next one.

Once you are done, copy the images to your PC and fire up photoshop.

In photoshop go to FIle -> Automate -> Photmerge. Ensure that the checkbox at the bottom (Attempt to Automatically arrange Source Images) is checked.

Select all the photos you just took and let Photoshop do the hard work. A preview window should appear that might look a little weird. You should now be at the preview screen. If you followed the method where you rotated the camera ( as opposed to shifting it along a straight line), change the Settings radio box to Perspective. Also set it to Cylindrical Mapping. The image should look panoramic but with twisted edges. We'll fix that next.

Once you're satisfied with the results Hit Ok to get back to your photoshop session. Now select the Crop Tool and drag around the image to exclude all the edges. Try and cut a rectangle such that only the distorted parts of the images are excluded.

That's about it. After this you could use other tools like Levels, Curves and Hue/Saturation to further fine tune your panorama. Fool around a bit until you get a pretty picture that you could use as a wallpaper or generally show off.


Here is what mine looks like (yes the view from my terrace is awful ). This is only a preview. The original file is 18MB.




Have fun!

Damn. Wrong section. Could the mods please move it to Guides and Tutorials?

If you want a cheaper and easier method, just use Windows Live Photo Gallery. Zero cost, and results just as good.

Now...Canon give us a "Stitch Assist" mode....I saw it in a A720IS....
S5IS have it also & many others.....

My question is, Is it a In-Camera 'pano' making mode or we need to do it PC(meaning the merging stuff)?

Also canon provide a softies name something photo stitch in the CDs.....Is that any good ?

BTW nice tut & nice pic too.

canon fotostitch rocks, has an amazing AI (if u can call it that), however this guide is pretty generic and will work with any PnS, this is helpful for ppl with the pathetic aipteks, olympusses, samsungs and the likes.

I usually do it with the panorama mode it was in my trusty old A75 and is also available in my SX100IS.

canon photostitch is excellent piece of software.

It does much better job than photoshop.

I am using PS A95 and satisfied with panoramic mode of it

Photoshop doesn't do anything automatically... so what you're saying is that it does better job than someone manually doing in Photoshop? that could offend PS Pro's around.

I use my DSLR for pano shots, but since it doesn't have any preset/assist mode for pano. What I usually do is use wide lens and crop (no stitching software can beat that )... or else remember end points to match with concluding shot and use Exposure Lock to prevent the exposure to vary in different shots due to different lighting... and off-course manually stitching/composition of final shot in Photoshop. So far I've got pretty good job done in photoshop!!

The S3IS too has stitch assist, but I've never used it. If you have a DSLR, this tutorial is pretty useless as having a wide angle lens will produce far prettier pictures as iGo pointed out. Adobe Photoshop is the only software that I sorely miss in Linux, I wish they'd port it already . I suppose if you're used to PS, the GIMP learning curve seems rather steep. And no, GIMPShop doesn't cut it.

Please do share any nice panoramic pictures you've created. I'm a sucker for WIIIDE pictures.

Please don't Laugh....here is my try.
Software I use Adobe Photoshop Element 6.

Fantastic layman guide !! Repps !!

If anyone want more, please check here panoguide: the guide to panoramas and panoramic photography

Dude that's a stunning picture. Don't be modest :-p Refreshing scenery. I've never used elements, i thought it was picasa like.