24x36 Pano - Combining two photos w/o changing photo size

[kevmiami]

Good Afternoon,

Have really been getting into panos lately. Using stand alone PTGui Pro to stitch photos together; very pricey, but far suppior to PSE - blends sky elements together wonderfully on auto exposure P&S. Then crop & adjust as necessary in PSE6 with noise reduction plugin by Noise Ninja and then finally Fractals 5 plugin to enlarge; also pricey but great results. Have some great 24x26 photos on the wall taken with just 7mp Panasonic Tz3.

Trying to cost effectively print and mount several panos - using 12"x36" 3"-wide frames from Michael's (only $29 on sale) and 3"-wide frame negates need for expensive mat.

I've created a white blank 24x36 360 dpi canvas in PSE6. Have completed two 12x36x360dpi panos to place on the blank canvas. The part that I can't figure out, is how to move the photo pano photos onto the canvas without accidently changing size. The photos are appropriately sized to fit, but when I drag & drop, you can accidently change the size, which I assume will adversly affect quality. Your guidance and thoughts welcome, Kevin :)

[TonyW]

Sounds interesting. The way I'd do it is not to bother about creating a blank canvas. Open both images, copy and paste one into the other so they are now on two layers. Then with the move tool selected move one with the arrow keys up so it just disappears. Then Image>Resize>Reveal All and the canvas will resize to show both images.

Tony

[Chuck S.]

Tony, I've never seen that Image>Resize>Reveal All before, and it's not mentioned in Help, at least of Photoshop Elements 5. Exactly what does it do?

Edit: Found a good explanation in a document called Top 10 Photoshop Features that people don't use but should:

Top 10 (http://www.adobeevangelists.com/pdfs/Top10PSFeatNotUsed.pdf)

[TonyW]

Chuck: Must have been where I read it because I use it quite a lot :D . Any time part of the image disappears off the edge Reveal All resizes the canvas so it all fits.

Tony

[Chuck S.]

I love a day when I learn something new! Thanks, Tony!!

:):)

Chuck

[Ric Cisson]

Okay Tony, I follow, I can cut and paste, but I am unable, at this time, to be able to get reveal all to go "active". I must be missing something. Your explaination seems simple enough, and I am sure I got it, err...at least I thought I had it...but when I go to >reveal all...it is grayed out as inactive. I am in 8bit with layers, but it is not responding...:confused:

[TonyW]

Ric: Only two reasons I can think of. One is that there is nothing to reveal (part of one of the images must be outside the canvas) or you haven't committed the move to the outside (hit Enter to comit). If you select the move tool and see the bounding box is in the gray area outside the canvas then Reveal All should be active.

Tony

[Ric Cisson]

Tony, thanks for your response. I will try your recommendation a bit later. I find this approach potentially helpful. I will let you know later, how it turns out.