Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
IN THE FIELD: SHOOTING TIPS FOR GOOD MERGES
The most important part of creating a great panorama starts before you even launch Elements.
You can save yourself a lot of grief by planning ahead when shooting photos.
Most of the time, you know
before
you shoot that you'll want to merge the photos. You don't of-
ten say, “Wow, I have seven photos of the Captain Jack Sparrow balloon at the Thanksgiving Day
parade that just happen to be exactly in line and have a 30 percent overlap between each one.
Guess I'll try a merge!”
Before you take pictures for a panorama, set your camera to be as much in manual mode as pos-
sible. The biggest headache in panorama making is trying to get the exposure, color, brightness,
and so on to blend seamlessly (but Elements is darned good at blending the outlines of the physic-
al objects in photos). So lock your camera's settings so that the exposure of each image is as
identical as possible. Even small digital cameras that don't have much in the way of manual con-
trols may have some kind of panorama setting—like Canon's Stitch Assist mode—that does the
same thing.
(Your camera may actually be able to make merges that are at least as good as what Elements can
do, because the camera does the image-blending internally. Check whether your model has a pan-
orama feature.)
The more your photos overlap, the better. Elements does what it can with what you give it, but it's
really happy if about a third of each image overlaps with the next.
Use a tripod if you have one, and
pan heads
(tripod heads that let you swivel the camera in an ab-
solutely straight line). As long as your shots aren't wildly out of line, Elements can usually cope.
But if you don't use a tripod, you may have to do quite a bit of cropping to get even edges on the
finished result.
Regardless of whether you use a tripod, keep the camera—rather than the horizon—level to avoid
distortion. In other words, focus your attention more on leveling the body of the camera than on
what you see through the viewfinder. Use the same focal length for each image, and try not to use
the zoom, unless it's manual, so you can keep it exactly the same for every image.
TIP
Before you send your panorama out for printing, flatten it (Layer→Flatten Image), since
most commercial printers don't accept layered files. Also, if you zoom way in on your
layered panorama and look at the seams, you may occasionally see what look like hairline
cracks. Merging or flattening the layers gets rid of these cracks.
