This post on Creating a Panorama with Photoshop and Photomerge has been submitted by Matt Dawdy from www.TheRightPic.com.
A panorama is simply a wide-angled view of a physical space. To the photographer a panorama is usually several photographs that are stitched together horizontally to create a seamless picture.
This is going to be a pretty simple tutorial in which we create a panorama using Photoshop’s Photomerge utility.
Here are the tools I am going to use to create panoramic photos:
1. A digital camera
2. A tripod or a stable surface or platform to take pictures from that allows some horizontal rotation
3. A computer and Adobe Photoshop and the Photomerge utility
When I started thinking about this tutorial I began to wonder what I should shoot. Just about any subject can be used for a panorama, however traditional panoramic photography subjects are typically landscapes or city skylines. I will show you a few different panoramas that I created, some typical, some a little different than what you would normally see for a panorama.
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Martin Gommel is a photographer on Flickr that I’ve been admiring for a while. Martin also has a blog called KWERFELDEIN (German) and has generously offered to to translate one of his photography articles for Digital Photography School. I’ve also made a few minor amendments/translations - and hope that between us we’ve created a helpful article for you. PS: the images in this post are all Martin’s - enjoy.
100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography
Since I found photography two and a half years ago I have learned different things which I would like to share with you today. These lessons have made me richer and I hope that you will find them refreshing and inspiring on your journey with the camera, too.
1. Never do photography to become a rock-star.
2. Enjoy what you are shooting.
3. Prepare well for your shooting, realizing that your battery isn’t charge when you’re setting up for that sunrise shoot is too late!
4. Always take one warm garment more than you actually need with you
5. Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions while you are shooting
6. Set goals you can achieve
7. Write tips about photography, because writing is also learning
8. Never go shooting without a tripod
9. Be pleased with the little prosperities
10. Build relationships with potential photo buddies
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Weekly Assignment
This week we finished the In my life assignment. People showed us so many different things that were important parts of their lives, from family to friends, pets and hobbies… we got a glimpse into the lives of many of our forum members. It would seem shocking if Susan didn’t make it into the top three this week, and she did, as our winner (and she even made Flickr’s explore with her photo). Our runners up were jdesai for the picture of the “three year old troublemaker” and MikeM for showing us where the focus of his life currently is: Photography. Well done everyone.
We also started a new assignment, and we’re doing Self-Portraits II. This one ought to make all of the threesixtyfive and fiftytwo people happy. The title is pretty self explanatory, but in case you’re not sure, we’re looking for a picture that you have taken of yourself. In order to be eligible for the mini-contest, you must put the words “Assignment: Self Portrait II” into your post, it must have been taken between 26 Sept - 9 Oct 2007, and the exif must still be intact. So, now that we’ve seen what’s important in your life, let’s see who you are. Next week’s assignment will be Coffee, so get brewing.
Weekly Poll
Our weekly poll asked forum members whether they preferred flash photography or natural light. The result was overwhelmingly natural light, but some forum members provided some insight into why this might be.
About flash, mdwsta4 said “once you learn how to use it, it will make a huge difference in the quality of your work because of the newly created light.”
And Saralonde also agreed and said “If all conditions are perfect, natural light might be best, but it often is not. The fact that you can control lighting to create different moods and effects, fill in dark areas, and construct shadows where none exist make flash an invaluable aid to artistic images.”
Of course, seeing as 92% of the responses were for natural light, there were a few responses that preferred natural light because, as thekevinmonster said, “I like natural light because it looks, well, natural. It’s also there all the time (except at night, duh) so you can ‘just take a picture’ without having to fiddle around with lights.”
Watch for the next weekly poll to be posted on Sunday. Read the rest of this entry
While this is a digital photography site - I do know that some of our regular readers shoot in both digital and film.
It got me wondering:
how many photographers still shoot with film?
- Do you?
- If so - how much of your photography is film and how much is digital?
- Do you shoot both in the same shoots or do you mix it up?
Looking forward to your answers.
The following tutorial on Processing RAW Files using Adobe Lightroom was submitted by John Short from www.canonphoto.co.uk and www.johnshort.co.uk
Why do we read so often then it is best to shoot your image in raw and not as jpegs?
The first image in this tutorial is a jpeg of a Gannet where I have deliberately blown the highlights. One of the problems with a jpeg image is once exposed it is processed in your camera and the raw data is lost. If you have blown the highlights the information is simply not there for you to recover in your favourite processing application.
The following images are the basic steps in processing a raw file and I hope will demonstrate to you the benefits of shooting in raw mode. If you want to try to emulate my final image using the jpeg file and your favourite image editing software be my guest. It will be interesting to see what can be achieved in comparison with working with the raw file.
Adobe Lightroom is not just a processing application for raw files, it is also a library for storing, retrieving and searching for images. I have 20,000 raw files on my computer and Lightroom has catalogued them all in the library for instant display. Images can be filed by title,date metadata and so on. This aspect of Lightroom is really for a different tutorial and if there is interest I will put one together but for today let us concentrate on processing your raw files.
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Digital Camera Magazine (UK) has a useful feature in their October issue on Black and White photography. It contains a lot of good information - but one of the topics that they cover was on how to ’see in black and white’.
In it the author shares 4 ‘key ingredients’ of that will help you to visualize whether a scene will work as a black and white image or not. The titles below are from the article - the thoughts are mine (and I’ve added one of my own tips too).
1. Look for Contrast
One of the elements that can give interest to a black and white shot is contrast. Because you can’t use color to distinguish one element of your image from another the tonal variances become all the more important. This doesn’t mean you need to look for stark contrasts in every shot you want to convert to black and white - the subject matter will come into play here - but you should ponder how the contrast will come into play when composing your shot.
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