essential skills: digital photography in available light
Stitching the photos
Now that the source photos have been successfully captured let’s set about stitching them together
to form a panorama. Adobe’s Photomerge (available in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements)
was used to join the images but the other programs mentioned above could have been used just
as easily.
The process is started by selecting the
source fi les. You can multi-select the
images from inside Bridge or Element’s
Photo Browser or use the Photomerge add
fi les window which is displayed when the
feature is selected from the File menu.
The simple add fi les dialog contains
Browse/Open and Remove options which
prompt the user to nominate the picture
fi les that will be used to make up the
panorama. Preselected fi les will already
be entered into the dialog, other suitable
images are ‘browsed’ for and ‘opened’ into
the Source Files section of the box. Any
of the fi les listed here can be removed if
incorrectly added by highlighting the fi le
name and clicking the Remove button.
Clicking OK exits the dialog and starts
the initial opening and arranging steps in
Photomerge. You will see the program
load, match and stitch the image pieces
together. For the most part, Photomerge
will be able to correctly identify overlapping
sequential images and will place them
side by side in the editing workspace. In
some instances, a few of the source fi les
might not be able to be automatically
placed and Photomerge will then display
a pop-up dialog telling you this has
occurred. Don’t be concerned about this
as a little fi ne-tuning is needed even
with the best panoramic projects and the
pictures that haven’t been placed can be
manually moved into position in the main
Photomerge workspace.
Whilst in the Photomerge workspace
you can use the Select Image tool to
move any of the individual parts of the