How do I create a Panorama?

[christiancampain]

How do I create a panorama, running Photo Shop 7 Windows XP Home Edition?

I could do this easily using the Photomerge tool using Photo Shop Elements 2.0 - but there seems to be no such tool in Photo Shop 7.0.

Please help.

[Tips]

See: this forum post

However, only 'part' of the "Align Layers" tutorial will be helpful if you only have Photoshop 7.

In 7, you'll need to:

1. Start a new canvas, the height of the photos, and wide enough to accommodate ALL the shots -- across the width of the panorama.

2. Drag in all the shots. (Use the SHIFT key while dragging so they'll fit perfectly top and bottom.

3. Drag each photo (which arrived in its own layer) into position

4. One by one, make slightly transparent so you can see your overlap features -- drag them until the features overlap.

5. Using a selection around the "cut-off" (or deep overlap) portion of the photo, with an appropriate "Feather" command, FEATHER the left and right edges of each overlap to "soften" the transition

6. Adjust (carefully) either sections of, or the left and right sections of the overlaps using the LEVELS command until the color matches (You can also dodge and burn, but that takes some savvy with the tools!)

7. Once all layers are aligned, and color adjusted, make sure they are all set to 100% opacity, Crop and Save As...

I've done it many times, going as far back as Photoshop 3.5 (The first version with layers) and after some practice, you can get them almost perfect.

NOTE: some cameras have a "Panorama" mode... read your manual and USE that mode -- better cameras will adjust the exposure in LOCK position so you don't get the bad exposure shifts the "auto" mode will give you.



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