This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Creating a Simple Panorama
For the first panorama, let's make a simple one from two photos. If you downloaded the files for this chapter, we will be using right plane.jpg and left plane.jpg:
-
In the File menu, select Create Photomerge. The dialog box that appears enables you to select the photos used in the panorama (see Figure 11.3). If any photos are already open in Photoshop Elements, they appear on this list. I strongly recommend that you have all of your images closed because any open photo uses memory resources. Click the Browse button and select the right plane.jpg and left plane.jpg files. The order of the files in this box is not important. Click OK.
){kind=link}
Figure 11.3 The images to be included in the panorama are selected from the Photomerge dialog box.
-
Photomerge works on the image for a few moments. How long this takes is a function of the size and number of the photos and the horsepower of your system. Because there are only two small photos in this example, the next (huge) dialog box appears relatively quickly (see Figure 11.4).
){kind=link}
Figure 11.4 Use the Photomerge control dialog box to edit the panorama.
-
Because this image has only two photos, there's no need to be concerned about using the Perspective setting. Click the Advanced Blending button and click OK. The dialog box closes and a new untitled image window opens, similar to the one shown in Figure 11.5. Make a note of two errors in this panorama. First, it is a layer without a background; we correct that momentarily. Second, look carefully at the bottom-left portion of the yellow cowling and you can see that the pieces don't exactly match up. Why? Because I took these photos without a tripod and the position of the camera changed between photos.
){kind=link}
Figure 11.5 Photomerge seamlessly (almost) made the two halves of the plane into a single image.
-
Flatten the panorama (select Layers, Flatten Image) and select the Crop tool (C).
-
To fill in the gaps, I used a combination of things. By creating rectangular selections, I was able to move large sections of grass and sky around using the Move tool (V) while holding the Alt key. (We learned about this in Chapter 5, "Dealing with Composition Problems And Distortion.") I then used the Clone tool (S) to cover up the edges and fill in the small spaces. When it was all filled in, I used the Crop tool to remove some of the rough edges, as shown in Figure 11.6.
){kind=link}
Figure 11.6 An easy panorama made by using Photomerge and two photographs.