Digital Photography in Available Light

essential skills: digital photography in available light

Producing panoramas

A variety of specialised stitching software programs are available for both the Mac and Windows

environments. The range covers simple entry-level packages like Roxio’s PhotoVista through to

professional products such as RealViz’s Stitcher. Add to these the fact that image manipulation and

enhancement packages like Adobe’s Photoshop Elements and Photoshop now contain stitching

tools and that most new digital cameras come bundled with proprietary panoramic products and

you will see that you have plenty of options to play with in the production phase.

Canon PhotoStitch and Nikon

(Arcsoft) panorama maker

These panoramic utilities are supplied as part

of the software that comes with most Canon

and Nikon digital cameras. They offer simple

step-by-step processes for acquiring, adjusting,

stitching and saving panoramic images. Although

specifi cally designed for the production of wide

images for print there is also the option to save

pictures as QuickTime VR movies.

The resultant images are well aligned and

blended and generally give good results.

These packages are typical of the ‘included’

software titles that are now frequently bundled

with new digital cameras. Although not a major

purchasing reason itself, having a piece of

software like this included ‘free of charge’ does

make some camera deals more attractive.

Adobe Photomerge

Not to be left behind Adobe has included a

stitching feature called Photomerge in both

their entry level offering - Photoshop Elements

and the king of photo editing - Photoshop. The

automated process acquires and matches edge

details of separate fi les before making a new

single panoramic picture. A variety of tools are

available for manual adjustment of positioning

of source images within the panorama and there

are also options for perspective correction and

advanced edge blending. Having a stitching

feature as part of your favourite imaging

program seems to make sense especially if you

only produce panoramas infrequently. And it’s

included free.

Canon PhotoStitch is supplied free with most Canon

cameras

After starting life as an Elements only inclusion Adobe’s

Photomerge now comes standard with both Photoshop

Elements and Photoshop