This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Panorama Examples
I wanted to show you some of the projects that I have created with the newest version of Photomerge in Elements 2.0.
Figure 11.21 doesn't look much like a panorama, but it was created from three photos. The sky, which was behind me when I took the photo of the Capitol building, is also a panorama. It took only a few minutes to replace the overcast sky that was behind the Capitol with the other image.
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Figure 11.21 Not all panoramas have to be wide and narrow. This one is a combination of two panoramas (each with three photos). One is the Capitol and the other is the sky.
Of course, some panoramas are very wide and narrow. There is a small town in Texas, called Smithville, whose claim to fame in recent times is that it was the town where the movie Hope Floats was filmed. One of the charming aspects of this tiny hamlet is that several buildings in the town still have billboards that date back to the 1940s, similar to the one for the Star Biscuit Company (shown in Figure 11.22). It was made from five photographs using the Normal setting. When a panorama gets this wide, Perspective gets completely confused and wildly distorts the panorama's ends.
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Figure 11.22 This old building is a marvelous combination of textures and time periods. This panorama was made from five photos.
Multiple Panels Overlaid
The challenge I had with the Falls on Bull Creek panorama was that diffused light from the overcast sky had made the falls dark. The solution was to take two sets of panoramic photos. I shot the first set using the sky as the light source. The second set of photos I took by using the spot setting on my camera so that the exposure would be adjusted correctly for the waterfall portion, even though the sky would be overexposed (washed out). I created two separate panoramas from the photos and then merged the two panoramas together using layers in Elements. Figure 11.23 shows the final result.
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Figure 11.23 This photo was made from two sets of photos taken at two different exposure settings.
How Big Can You Make Them?
When it comes to making panoramas, this it the most frequently asked question. There isn't a really good answer to that. Because I like to make panoramas that print flat, I limit my photos to take in no more than 180 degrees. Figure 11.24 is a monster of an image that was made from seven photos.
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Figure 11.24 This monster panorama, made from seven photos, was a whopping 60MB in size while I was working on it.
First Panorama
The panorama shown in Figure 11.25 was the result of incredibly good luck. We were on the hill overlooking the Acropolis on one of the clearest days in almost a decade. I had my 2 megapixel Nikon Coolpix, and there was an old concrete cylinder on which to rest the camera for the panorama. This was the first panorama that I ever created—after this, I was hooked.
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Figure 11.25 Without a tripod, and using a relatively small digital camera, I took the photographs used to make this panorama.