Photomerge...HELP!

[shellb]

When I got up this morning and saw that the moon was still out at 8am, I was inspired by Cats4jan’s “Look what I saw tonight” photo and decided to take a picture. I have been working on perfecting my panoramic photomerge so I took 3 vertical pictures as the PSET newsletter suggested. I don’t have a tripod (which is also suggested.)However, as with all my photomerges, there is this weird sloping color change? Does anyone know how to prevent this from happening during the photo taking process? Does anyone know how to correct it in PSE once it’s happened? Any help would be much appreciated as this is an ongoing problem for me. (I must be doing something wrong, I just can’t figure out what?)

http://www.barbalet.com/shell/thum_moon.jpg (http://www.barbalet.com/shell/moon_merge.jpg)

[Juergen D]

Shell,
Please forgive my ignorance, but would it not have been easier to take one shot in landscape mode?

Juergen

[Chuck S.]

Shell, can you put your camera in manual mode? What's happening is that the automatic exposure feature of your camera is changing its settings from one image to the next, and Photomerge (at least in PSE 5 and earlier) can't automatically correct for that difference. The diagonal is the 'seam' that Photomerge makes between two adjacent images.

If you can set your camera's aperture and shutter speed independently and use those same settings on each image that you're going to merge into a panorama, you'll virtually eliminate those seams. Otherwise, you're going to have to select either the darker or lighter image, apply a levels adjustment, and perhaps use the clone or blur tool along the seam.

The new Photomerge in CS3 supposedly can correct this exposure issue automatically; perhaps the new and improved Photomerge in PSE 6 has that improved functionality....?

[shellb]

Shell,
Please forgive my ignorance, but would it not have been easier to take one shot in landscape mode?

Juergen

I actually did use landscape. I took several pictures in hopes to practice the photomerge. I have one picture that would show the shot fine.

As for my camera features I will have to investigate whether or not I can set the shutter speed. I think the clone and blur tool are going to be my new best friends. I had read that PSE6 has a new improved photomerge but I just bought PSE5 less than a year ago. I’m still new to the whole thing.

Many thanks for the advice I will have to keep at it with your suggestions.

[Chuck S.]

Shell: What camera are you using? (make and model) We can help you figure out whether or not you can set the camera for panoramas.

[Wendy]

Hi Shell ..

Photomerge does tend to show a link in blue areas (most others are not too bad) ... Reduce the opacity of the Clone Tool way down (15 to 20 percent) , then make the brush size large and clone over the line.

Wendy :)

[shellb]

This is slightly beyond the scope of my ability. I did however take your suggestion and looked into my cameras settings. My camera is a Kodak Easy Share C743.There is a feature on it called Long Time Exposure, which is defined as “choose how long the shutter stays open”. It has always been set to none. Do you have any suggestions on how I should set this?

There is also a setting called Exposure Compensation. Do you know what that means and if I should be using it? The manual just says that it controls the amount of light that enters the camera; but what does that mean?

Any advice will be greatly received. I’m glad you suggested me looking into my camera settings. I have a 7.1mega pixel camera but the settings where at 4.0.mp! Opps! :o

[shellb]

Hi Shell ..

Photomerge does tend to show a link in blue areas (most others are not too bad) ... Reduce the opacity of the Clone Tool way down (15 to 20 percent) , then make the brush size large and clone over the line.

Wendy :)

Thanks Wendy. I Received some other advice that was helpful as well, so I will put the two together and hopefully get a decent photomerge. I find it such a cool feature of PSE that I really want to get the hang of producing reasonably good results.

Thanks again for all the advice!

[dddiam]

Now that Shell has a panarama photo with a diagonal line in it, how would one get rid of that line?

More specifically, is there a way to gradually grade the brightness and contrast across that diagonal line, rather than blending or smoothing?

- David D.

[jlwilm]

Hi Shell,

I downloaded your manual and I dont think your camera allows M or manual settings. :(

One thing you could try is taking your first shot, then try pressing the shutter button half way down - this sets focus and exposure on the first frame of your landscape, pan the camera to the next frame, then press fully. This will maintain the same exposure in the second frame as in the first.

If you need more than 2 frames for your panorama, try moving back to the first composition, press half way, then compose for 3rd frame, etc.

It is a little bit of guess work and changing lighting conditions can trip you up, but it may give better results.

[Chuck S.]

Now that Shell has a panarama photo with a diagonal line in it, how would one get rid of that line?

More specifically, is there a way to gradually grade the brightness and contrast across that diagonal line, rather than blending or smoothing?

- David D.

If the problem were just the diagonal line, it would be easy. However, the image to the right of the line is uniformly and significantly darker. I would build a selection of the whole darker portion and apply a levels adjustment to boost it to match the other side of the image. Then I could work on the remains of the diagonal line.

[Chuck S.]

Looking even more closely, there are actually three segments with different exposure values. Definitely a challenge....

[Juergen D]

More specifically, is there a way to gradually grade the brightness and contrast across that diagonal line, rather than blending or smoothing?
David,
It is actually best to get all parts to the same level of brightness. In this case, I used three layers and adjusted all three of them with Levels. Layer 3 had a slight color shift, which I corrected with Hue/Sat. At the end, everything is blended together with the clone stamp.

Juergen

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1RNSs02CRVSvb73m4Be9GH8kJ5dfy_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1RNSs02CRVSvb73m4Be9GH8kJ5dfy)

[Chuck S.]

Juergen, that's great! I tried levels only, but I didn't correct that color shift you fixed with Hue-Sat. Definitely an improvement!

[Chuck S.]

Juergen, do you think it would be easier to correct the three original images first, then do the Photomerge afterward? Those diagonal selections are a challenge for me, although I guess if I could learn to use the selection tools more effectively it wouldn't be so bad....

[Juergen D]

Chuck, I don't think so. First, it would be hard to get them to match separately and second, you still have to deal with a line. I feathered each selection by 5 pixels, which helped, but, as you can see, there was still a fairly wide area to clone. And, thank you! :o

Juergen

[shellb]

Hi Shell,


One thing you could try is taking your first shot, then try pressing the shutter button half way down - this sets focus and exposure on the first frame of your landscape, pan the camera to the next frame, then press fully. This will maintain the same exposure in the second frame as in the first.

If you need more than 2 frames for your panorama, try moving back to the first composition, press half way, then compose for 3rd frame, etc.



Yeah! Finally! It worked. Very good advice. I tried EVERYTHING. I was able to fix mistakes in Photoshop but just not to the level I was happy with. This technique worked so well. There was one tiny match up flaw but that had nothing to do with color. Once the photo was merged I was able to adjust the lighting as a whole (instead of as three different parts that I was trying to match up). Thank you!

Many thanks to all!

[pixlbandit]

The merge technique has an "Advanced Blending Mode" feature that you can find on the window/menu that precedes your final merge. Sometimes using this helps--also helps fill gaps if there are any.
Vicki