Photoshop: Create Panoramas With Photomerge
You have a point and shoot camera and you can’t capture a wide or tall view. You have an SLR and you can’t afford that lens that will allow you to get a killer 180o view. It’s not a problem. You won’t be able to do it in one shot, but at least, you will be able to do it with this easy to use feature in Photoshop called Photomerge.
Before getting in Photoshop, you must take the right shots. When shooting, make sure that each shot contains a little bit of scenery of the image(s) that is(are) suppose to be next to it. Otherwise, Photoshop won’t be able to match the photos. Now that you have the shots, it’s time to open Photoshop.
Photomerge existed since Photoshop CS2. I don’t remember if it was in earlier versions. In Photoshop CS3, you will find this feature by going in File > Automate > Photomerge. After clicking on it, the box below appears.
You can now browser for the images that will make up your panorama. The order is irrelevant. If you have opened the images prior to opening Photomerge, you can simply click on Add Open Files. Choose the layout you want. The Auto layout usually does the trick quite well, but you can force Photoshop to do what you want, and sometimes, you just want to try them all out just to see which one gives the best results for a give set of photos.
After you click OK, the processing time depends on the quantity of photos, their size and your computer’s performance. Save your photo and show off the result.
I have quite a lot of panoramas that I made using this feature.
