Panoramic Prints:
How is it done?
Use the manual setting on your camera and expose for the brightest part of your potential panorama. Skies present matching problems, in that the exposure can vary enormously across a large angle panorama as you get nearer the sun.
Use as good a lens as you can afford; minimal vignetting is a prime requisite for easy stitching of images.
Most people say that a sturdy tripod and an accurate level is essential for good panoramas. My secret is that I do all mine hand held!! Whilst taking the images, It is necessary to allow a considerable area of horizontal overlap (15-20%)
It helps to try and memorise that part of the image adjacent to your next shot so that when you pan the camera, you’ll be able to allow for the overlap. Do a rehearsal pan first to make sure that you have chosen a lens angle suitable to include all items, nothing worse than a clipped mountain peak…
Use a longish focal length lens if possible. Try to avoid detailed items in the foreground because they cause problems at image junctions. Having said that, it isn’t usually possible, so you will just need to be aware that foreground interest needs to be minimal.
Having loaded the images into the PC, I open the first picture in the series, adjust it using levels and also for colour saturation. Make a new layer using ‘copy’ and then increase the canvas size to roughly one big enough to hold the finished panorama. Don’t worry if you get this wrong, you can always enlarge it more later. Open the next in the series and ‘drag’ it in and place it roughly in position as a new layer (this will be automatic) over the first one on the ‘master’ canvas. That's the boring bit! The fun comes in deciding where the overlaps take place, although to some extent those decisions were made when the pics were taken.
Each image is then carefully graded for colour matching using image adjust, curves and colour balance. Auto balance is rarely good enough. When you are reasonably happy that it matches the first in the series, reduce the opacity of this image so that you can see through to the first image. Now you can position it so that the centre of the overlap area is (ideally) where there is minimal important detail. Once chosen, put opacity back to 100%.
I use the 'eraser' tool to gradually erase parts of the uppermost layer (most recently added to the canvas) using a large (100-300 pixel) soft brush. Experience tells me how far to go and when to switch to a smaller (or harder) brush. I frequently click each of the layers 'off' so that I can check how much more I can erase in any particular direction. It's very difficult to describe in words! You may need to use the ‘transform’ tool to ‘stretch’ or maybe rotate an image slightly to help the match. Repeat the process with subsequent images.
Eventually, I will crop the entire thing to remove superfluous bits, and then blend all the layers, having saved the multi-layer image as well. The cloning tool is then used here and there, and I may need to do some more work on the sky. Finally, I resize the image to a size suitable for printing on Epson roll paper.
As for the actual printing onto roll paper; that’s another subject entirely!
Mike Baker
Mike Baker