Panoramas with Photoshop CS3
I just returned from San Francisco, which I believe is one of the most photogenic cities in the world. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much time to shoot since I was at Macworld most of the time.
However, one morning a friend and I took the early bus to Treasure Island. I have been out there many times, but never as the sun was rising and I wanted to see that.
My point in going was to get a nice skyline photo so I could try the new “Auto-Align” and “Auto-Blend” features in Photoshop CS3. Even though my hands were shaking in the cold and a huge ship tried to block my view, I was able to take a few shots as the sun was rising.
When I got back to my computer, I opened up Photoshop CS3 to stitch together the shots. I couldn’t believe how easy it is to do it. It was really just three steps.
1) Open all the photos to the same project.
2) Select all layers and choose “Auto-Align”
3) Choose “Auto-Blend”
That is seriously all that I did and I was amazed at how well the photos were stitched. Even with the morning sky being list from left to right, the blending was good.
You can see my photo below: (click to enlarge)
Also, my friend took a nice panorama while he was in line for the keynote. He also used CS3 to stitch the photos.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Hi Brian,
Thanks very much for your article. I had problems with some of older panoramas which was due to auto exposure for each individual shots, resulting in a panorama with uneven colors and lighting.
With CS3’s PhotoMerge, these old panoramas came out beautifully.
Cheers, Ron
January 20th, 2007 at 5:08 am
Hi,
I was wondering if there is a free application to create panoramas, as the photoshop apps are quite expensive.
Just thougt this might be the very best sote to ask this question.
Thanks in advance,
Paul
January 24th, 2007 at 5:21 am
A better way to do it is:
1 - Open Photoshop,
2 - Go to menu file and select Automate and Photomerge
3 - Then choose a folder where you have the pictures or individual files and load
4 - Choose the method (auto, perspective, cylindrical, reposition only, interactive layout)
5 - OK
And it’s done.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I think Brian’s way is much easier.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Thanks for the info…I just downloaded the beta CS3 and am going to try it out with some of my photos. I have had to use a pro setup at work before but I will see if I can use my own setup at home…didn’t realize it was so simple to do!
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:05 am
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