Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Panoramas and the perfect storm...


A panorama is a great way to portray a beautiful vista. In my last post, I mentioned an intense approaching storm, and I was able to photograph it just before it broke loose. The Havana waterfront made a great subject, the storm, even better! I photographed a succession of about eight images - overlapping by a third, and later merged them in Photoshop using Photomerge. And then, it stormed mad crazy!
If you haven't tried Photomerge in Photoshop CS4, please do, you are in for a treat! You'll be pleasantly surprised at the ease of working with multiple images. Merging the photos to complete the panorama was a breeze. I used a tripod for this panorama, but I've also had much success at just hand-holding the camera.
So, get out there and try it! Photograph a succession of images, overlapping by about a third. Use Photoshop's Photomerge feature to seamlessly blend the multiple images into a panorama. I used the "Cylindrical" option to merge this long series of images. Photograph in landscape orientation, and also in portrait orientation so you have lots of options.
Have fun shooting!