Inspiring Photo: Wetland #1885560

Wetland

Uploaded: March 20, 2006

Description

A Panorama of 4 pix I stiched together in Photoshop

Exif: FNumber: , ExposureBiasValue: , ExposureTime: , Flash: , ISO: , WhiteBalance:

Comments

Robyn Gwilt March 20, 2006

Friendly or constructive - any comments on this panorama? #412237

Dan C. March 20, 2006

Very nice. I like the sky and its reflection in the water. But especially the textures of the grasses.

If you did this in photoshop with 4 files, you must be a genius. It's just my opinion, but the native pano feature in photoshop is crappy. You have no arcing across the 4 pics which is good. Did you use this using only the native feature or a plugin that helps photoshop with panos?

Regards,
-Dan
#2553361

Robyn Gwilt March 20, 2006

Dan, I love the genius part LOL, no, I had a few marks and tried dodging and burning, then gave up and used a bit of cloning! No plug-ins. By the way this was hand held, no tripod.... does the genius apply to that as well. Actually most of the other pix were pretty crappy, with lots of burnt out sky, so thanks you made my day :) #2553377

Susan Jane Allen March 20, 2006

Well, haven't YOU become the photoshop girl! I once printed out the instructions for using the photostitch, and it came to ten pages. That was enough for me to realize that I don't presently have the patience to learn how to do it! And now I'm discouraged with Dan's comment---yikes! #2553385

Robyn Gwilt March 20, 2006

LOL Susan, it took me about 10 minutes - maybe I just got lucky with this one! I'm using a freebie CS2, which is about to expire, and you just select the files for photo stitching, and then fiddle a bit with the 'seams'. It wasn't difficult. Not sure though whether its worth the price difference between PSElements 4 (also using a freebit) and CS2. I'm getting comfortable with Elements and find CS2 a bit daunting. Your PS skills are also pretty impressive!! Dan your gallery is quite - I'm chuffed at your comments :) #2553401

Robyn Gwilt March 20, 2006

Susan Jane Allen March 20, 2006

Okay, you've consoled me. Maybe I'll give it a try. Worried I won't fix my tripod tightly enough and won't get the shots in completely on the same level. Am going out to shoot tomorrow, so maybe I'll try. Definitely time for bed! #2553455

Robyn Gwilt March 20, 2006

"By the way this was hand held, no tripod" !! I just crossed my arm over my shoulder and balanced the camera, and then rotated slowly whilst clicking. Guess I got lucky :) (or maybe it is that genius that Dan mentioned LOL!) #2553467

Dan C. March 20, 2006

No, no, no. A miscommunication. I did not mean to say the photoshop pano tools were hard. In fact, the're pretty easy. It's just that I have found the RESULTS to be cruddy in my opinion. I have stitched together 3 pics with much more arching than she has on 4.

In my personal tests, the best I have found so far is realviz. It does a fantastic job normally. But at $580 I think the price is ludicrous, rediculous, and laughable to boot. To ask more for a photoshop plugin than photoshop costs itself only indicates to me the realviz people are smoking funny green stuff.

Regards,
-Dan
#2553486

Robyn Gwilt March 20, 2006

LOL Dan, yeah you're right the pano tools are not difficult, its just the whole damn photoshop that stumps me most of the time :) Thanks for the comments though. Sleep tight Susan! #2553489

Dan C. March 20, 2006

I'm voting for a new forum named "Robyn's Word of the Day." "Chuffed", huh? I've been on this planet a long time and I have never heard a single person utter nor read a single thing that used that word. You must have been an english major or something. (And yes, I got my dusty ol' dictionary off the shelf and looked it up).

Regards,
-Dan
#2554220

Susan Jane Allen March 20, 2006

This is South African lingo, Dan. She's got some real beauties! #2555333

Robyn Gwilt March 21, 2006

Stick around Dan :) I didn't think it was an unusual word! My new word for you today - doff - like off with a d - this is word which is applied to someone who is being a bit 'thick/stupid', but without wanting to be too rude LOL. i.e. Paris Hilton is a real doffie - this needs no explaining I'm sure :) #2556090

March 22, 2006

Very interesting discussion about this image. The stitching of the 4 pictures is seamless. The panoramic format is perfect for this composition. Great job in ps. :) #2562306

Robyn Gwilt March 23, 2006

Thanks Andree :) Ok another new word for today - Yislaaik! pronounced 'yis-like' used in an expression of surprise - Yislaaik, I'm chuffed at the positive comments on this pic! LOL
Dan, I read somewhere yesterday, (can't remember where!!) tips on pano's "" the reason you get the lines/difference in colour is coz we're not using manual settings i.e. you have a pano, the tree is in the middle pic (say you're taking 3 pix) you start on the left, theres some bright water, the camera adjusts, you now take the middle pic, the bark/leaves on the tree are dark, so that camera adjusts for this, you take the next, last pic on the right, where there is again a difference - maybe no tree, nothing too dark, some water..... the camera adjusts again.... so all 3 pix will have slightly different settings - I guess it makes sense. The chap also said, where possible, use the tripod, and try to over lap your images by about half I think it was. But I thought the advice on shooting on all manual settings and keeping it all the same throughout makes sense - actually common sense, but I never thought of it! " Hope this helps! #2565333

Dan C. March 23, 2006

Robyn,

The author provided good advice about the tripod and manual modes. However, If you don't have a tripod with you, you can still shoot good panos if you are very carefull about the angle and rotation of your camera as you move. I find planting your feet toward the middle of the pano scene and doing all the rotating with the upper body works well.

As for manual mode, it's mandatory for good panos. But I'm big on manual mode anyway. I shoot everything in manual mode without exception. I honestly have not taken a single frame in shutter or aperture priority mode in months. I do so because to me the histogram is almost as important as the camera itself, and only when in manual mode can you tweak your histogam by a fractional change in shutter or aperture.

But there's one other very good reason I shoot in manual, and that's because I try to "shoot to the right." I have found that when there is room in the histogram (i.e., the histogram is not filled end to end) shooting to the right really does make a difference in quality. I'll not go into it here, but for anybody who reads this thread at a later date and wants to imporove their photography, there's a good article here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

I am going to disagree with the 1/2 picture overlap, tho. Most articles I've read seem to say 1/3. If you are using software like photoshop or realviz in the auto mode, they seem to need about a 1/3 overlap to function. However, if I am manually stitching, I go down to 1/4. The smaller overlaps are beneficial because if you can reduce a pano set from 4 pics to 3 pics it's one less seam you have to deal with.

P.s., Your "chuffed" is actually in the dictionary, but not Yislaaik. But it is regional slang. When googled, every reference to the word is regionalized to south africa. Neat word! #2566621

Robyn Gwilt March 23, 2006

Yislaaik Dan, that was a 'moerse' long answer!! ROFLMAO - very good though, and yes, I think he did mention 1/3, as I said I wasn't too sure though. Ok, now look up 'moer' or 'moerse' - to try to explain it... um... could be used when very angry and wanting to give someone a good klap (slap), "I'm going to moer you" (not very friendly!!), or to describe something thats awesomely big/confusing/amazing.... "That was a moerse hamburger", I'm moerse confused now, which F stop????, That was a moer-of good movie/concert!!! Its a very Afrikaans word, but very descriptive :)) #2566652

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