One of my favorite styles of image is a panoramic photo. Creating this type of image in Adobe Photoshop is super easy thanks to the Photomerge command. You can take several images and combine them into a seamless panoramic image. You can use Photomerge to combine images that are tiled horizontally, vertically, or both..

Use the following steps to merge overlapping photos into a single panoramic image.

  1. In Photoshop, Choose File > Automate > Photomerge. You can also invoke this command from within Lightroom for a selected group of images (right-click > Edit In > Merge to Panorama in Photoshop).
  2. Click the Use pop-up menu and choose Files (to select individual images) or Folders (to choose an entire folder).
  3. Click the Browse button and navigate to the files or folder you want to use.
    PPCC_Ch08_008
  4. Choose the following options:
    • Blend Images Together to have Photoshop attempt to seamlessly blend exposure and color.
    • Vignette Removal to correct for any natural lens vignetting (darkening) at the edges.
    • Geometric Distortion Correction to repair any lens distortion (often caused when shooting at a wider angle).
  • Select a Layout option to merge the photos. For most situations, Auto works well. The other methods are specialized… I sometimes use Perspective if the image has a strong central area of focus which you want to build the panorama around.
  • Click OK to begin the Photomerge process. Photoshop opens all of the images and assembles them.
  • After merging the image, Photoshop will show you the new file. It may have some distortion (depending upon how you shot the photo).
  • Select all of the layers in the Layers panel (shift+click).
  • Choose Layer > Smart Objects >Convert to Smart Object to create a merged copy (that can still be modified if needed).
    PPCC_Ch08_004
  • Choose Filter > Adaptive Wide Angle and use the Adaptive Wide Angle command to remover any distortion (see this post).
    adaptive
  • The missing pixels can be filled in using Content Aware fill.
    PPCC_Ch08_006
  • The resulting image after some color correction.
    panohead

Disclaimer: This is just one workflow for panoramic images.

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