- Basic Selections 101 with Lab
- Introducing the Marquee Tools
- Rounding Up the Lasso Tools
- Getting the Best Selections (in the Least Amount of Time)
- Let's Lasso Somebody
- Saving and Loading Selections
- Magic Wand Tool Magic
- The Layer Mask
- Replacing an Overcast Sky
- Making a Quick Panorama Using Selections
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Making a Quick Panorama Using Selections
Selections also can be used to move parts of images around quickly without using the clipboard. In this exercise, you are going to use the WildFlowers.tif image from the previous example and make a panorama image.
Creating a Panoramic View
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If the WildFlowers.tif image from the previous exercise is not already open, open this file now.
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Your first goal is to make the image a little wider. The background color should still be white. If it's not, press D for default colors (and press X if necessary to make white the background color). Right-click (Macintosh: hold Ctrl and click) the title bar of the image and choose Canvas Size. In the Canvas Size dialog box, check the Relative checkbox, change the Width to 665 (pixels), and change the Anchor point to the button on the middle-left (see Figure 3.24). Click OK and the photo now has a white rectangle on the right side.
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Choose the Rectangle Marquee tool from the toolbox. The Feather setting on the Options bar should be set to 0 pixels. Drag a selection beginning at the top of the original photograph to the right side of the farthest white monument and move down to the bottom right edge where the image ends and the new canvas begins (see Figure 3.25). Don't forget that you can hold down the spacebar as you make the selection to reposition the marquee selection close to the monument (then release the spacebar and continue to drag to complete the selection). Now the fun begins.
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Hold down the Ctrl(„)+Alt(Opt) keys and the cursor changes to a double arrow. Still holding these keys, click inside the selection and drag it until it fills the new area you created. If you have the dexterity, press the Shift key as you drag to restrain the movement horizontally; otherwise, you can adjust the position using the up and down arrow keys. The selection should look like Figure 3.26.
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Press Ctrl(„)+D to deselect. On the Options bar, change the Feather setting to 3 pixels. The goal here is to patch the seam area and to break up the repeating patterns. The most obvious repeated pattern is where the two selections overlapped. Drag a selection from the line of trees to the left of the break, as item 1 points out in Figure 3.27. Using the same technique you used in Step 3, Ctrl(„)+Alt(Opt)+click inside the selection and drag it over the break (as item 2 shows). When you're satisfied, press Ctrl(„)+D to deselect.
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Look at the image and you will see more patterns that literally scream repair. To finish the job, choose the Clone Stamp tool from the toolbox. On the Options bar, choose the soft round 100-pixel brush (the remaining settings should be the defaults shown in Figure 3.28). Carefully pick areas that you want to use to patch the trouble areas, then press Alt(Opt), and click a sample area. Click in the trouble spots to repair the seams or any repetitious patterns you want to minimize. Press Alt(Opt) to sample new areas frequently; and if you don't like a particular brush stroke, don't forget that you can use the History palette (or Ctrl(„)+Alt(Opt)+Z to undo as many steps as the History palette allows). Figure 3.28 shows the final results.
NOTE
Coloring Your New Canvas Size When the Canvas Size dialog box is used to enlarge the document dimensions, Photoshop will automatically use the background color to fill in the added space. This might be a helpful fact to keep in mind if you have a situation in which you intentionally want a specific color for the additional space added to the canvas size. The exception to this rule is that if there is no Background layer, the resulting expansion will then be transparent.
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Figure
3.24 Use the Canvas Size dialog box to expand the Width of your document
by adding three more inches to the right side.
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Figure
3.25 Make a selection with the Rectangular Marquee tool, similar to the
one shown here.
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Figure
3.26 Works great, but the seam prevents it from looking real at this point.
Don't forget to set the Feather option back to the default of 0 for the next time you use the Rectangular Marquee tool.
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Figure
3.27 Use another selection (item 1) and move it over the seam (item 2)
to help break up the repeating pattern near the seam. The goal is to make
it look like a single photograph.
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Figure
3.28 A finished panorama in less than five minutes.