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.
- 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).
- Click the Use pop-up menu and choose Files (to select individual images) or Folders (to choose an entire folder).
- Click the Browse button and navigate to the files or folder you want to use.
- 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).
- Choose Filter > Adaptive Wide Angle and use the Adaptive Wide Angle command to remover any distortion (see this post).
- The missing pixels can be filled in using Content Aware fill.
- The resulting image after some color correction.
Disclaimer: This is just one workflow for panoramic images.
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Oh my gosh amazing thank you so much! I’m so happy I have found this blog!!
This is an Amazing Trick which i ever used in photoshop thanks a ton
This is a good tutorial, would you be able to elaborate on the content aware fill and color correction parts? I find the difference between two last images just striking, what exactly did you do there? Thanks in advance.
Select the empty areas… expand the selection so it bleeds into the good pixels. Choose Edit Fill and select the content aware option.
I’m new to Photoshop. I follow the video tutorial but find the Edit> Fill option to fill in missing pixels, is greyed out. I can’t figure out why. Any ideas? Thanks.
Make sure the layer is selected in the layers panel
won’ t work for me either, even though I have the layer selected : (
Any suggestions?
Then you need more overlap between images.
How do you end up with one layer?I got like 8…
Merge the layers
I used Flatten image,skipped the angle corrections because I didn’t want to screw up much,then during the pixel filling I ended up with a fully black image…God I suck so much at photoshop,any ideas about what I did wrong?
You need to follow the steps as I listed them
I’m using photoshop CC 2014 with Lightroom and suddenly my panoramics have decided to be fit to a vertical shape rather than horizontal, so not all images (of only four) fit across and I have a ‘floater’ above. I can’t imagine what I did that was different to previous merges. Any ideas how to fix it so that the design is a horizontal shape?
Make sure you have enough overlap. You can also arrange them in order in Bridge or Lightroom and invoke the command from there.
Thanks – I have 50% overlap, they are in number order and imported from Lightroom. Previous panorama results have been on the horizontal plane so that I end up with a ‘landscape’ result. This time it’s a ‘portrait’ result and i don’t understand how it came about. The original photos are portrait. I have watched the CC Photoshop ‘how to’ video and can’t work out what is wrong. The video used portrait oriented photos to get a landscape result, so i don’t think the shape of the photo is a problem. It’s the end result that is frustrating.
Make sure you update Photoshop and Camera Raw. Also use the Raw photos to merge… its possible you resized an image and if they don’t match in resolution they won’t merge. Also try auto method
i could not find the option of photo-merge in adopt Photoshop 7 want your kindly helps.
There have been 9 full version upgrades since then.. you may need to update your software
Awesome! Would this be a common way to stitch together pictures for a panorama? Would doing it manually be something un-heard of? Thank you for this!
This is definitely the fastest and easiest way, however, you do have to be thinking about this process while taking your pictures. The Photomerge tool requires that you have 20-40% of overlap between images and that you stay standing in the same place while panning and capturing the photos. It usually comes out cleaner than the panorama setting on your phone Manually stitching pictures, while not unheard of, is time-consuming to get right and makes for more work in color/brightness/contrast adjustments later on. But manual stitching may be necessary if you do not have sufficient overlap between photos to use… Read more »
Thanks for the great and very easy to follow tutorial! I have one recommendation, try merging without Geometric Distortion Correction first and the go back and add it only if need be. I discovered this by accident. I had two sets of pans from the same morning different times. The first set I used the default settings which did not have Geometric Distortion Correction set and there was no need to do Adaptive Wide Angle correction. The second set I had Geometric Distortion Correction set and I had this banana shaped image like in your example. I did a bit… Read more »
Pano is great but when I try to fill with Content Aware I get an error message saying “Could not fill because there are not enough opaque source pixels” Could you please help?
Make sure you expand your selection more to select more good pixels.
Its not letting me do it. Every time I press Photomerge, it says photoshop has stopped working and asks me to close the program. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Try a fresh reinstall of app and make sure you have permission to write to drive
Good photoshop tutorials
Hi thanks for the info, will this method allow to save at very high resolution?
Yes, its the resolution of all the photos combined
Thank you so much! Your tutorial is a very good one, it helps me a lot…. keep up the good work Mr Harrington
Oh my gosh amazing thank you so much! I’m so happy I have found this blog!!
How do you end up with one layer?I got like 8…
Merge the layers
I used Flatten image,skipped the angle corrections because I didn’t want to screw up much,then during the pixel filling I ended up with a fully black image…God I suck so much at photoshop,any ideas about what I did wrong?
You need to follow the steps as I listed them
This is a good tutorial, would you be able to elaborate on the content aware fill and color correction parts? I find the difference between two last images just striking, what exactly did you do there? Thanks in advance.
Select the empty areas… expand the selection so it bleeds into the good pixels. Choose Edit Fill and select the content aware option.
I’m new to Photoshop. I follow the video tutorial but find the Edit> Fill option to fill in missing pixels, is greyed out. I can’t figure out why. Any ideas? Thanks.
Make sure the layer is selected in the layers panel
won’ t work for me either, even though I have the layer selected : (
Any suggestions?
Then you need more overlap between images.
I’m using photoshop CC 2014 with Lightroom and suddenly my panoramics have decided to be fit to a vertical shape rather than horizontal, so not all images (of only four) fit across and I have a ‘floater’ above. I can’t imagine what I did that was different to previous merges. Any ideas how to fix it so that the design is a horizontal shape?
Make sure you have enough overlap. You can also arrange them in order in Bridge or Lightroom and invoke the command from there.
Thanks – I have 50% overlap, they are in number order and imported from Lightroom. Previous panorama results have been on the horizontal plane so that I end up with a ‘landscape’ result. This time it’s a ‘portrait’ result and i don’t understand how it came about. The original photos are portrait. I have watched the CC Photoshop ‘how to’ video and can’t work out what is wrong. The video used portrait oriented photos to get a landscape result, so i don’t think the shape of the photo is a problem. It’s the end result that is frustrating.
Make sure you update Photoshop and Camera Raw. Also use the Raw photos to merge… its possible you resized an image and if they don’t match in resolution they won’t merge. Also try auto method
i could not find the option of photo-merge in adopt Photoshop 7 want your kindly helps.
There have been 9 full version upgrades since then.. you may need to update your software
This is an Amazing Trick which i ever used in photoshop thanks a ton
Awesome! Would this be a common way to stitch together pictures for a panorama? Would doing it manually be something un-heard of? Thank you for this!
This is definitely the fastest and easiest way, however, you do have to be thinking about this process while taking your pictures. The Photomerge tool requires that you have 20-40% of overlap between images and that you stay standing in the same place while panning and capturing the photos. It usually comes out cleaner than the panorama setting on your phone Manually stitching pictures, while not unheard of, is time-consuming to get right and makes for more work in color/brightness/contrast adjustments later on. But manual stitching may be necessary if you do not have sufficient overlap between photos to use… Read more »
Its not letting me do it. Every time I press Photomerge, it says photoshop has stopped working and asks me to close the program. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Try a fresh reinstall of app and make sure you have permission to write to drive
Pano is great but when I try to fill with Content Aware I get an error message saying “Could not fill because there are not enough opaque source pixels” Could you please help?
Make sure you expand your selection more to select more good pixels.
Good photoshop tutorials
Thank you so much! Your tutorial is a very good one, it helps me a lot…. keep up the good work Mr Harrington
Hi thanks for the info, will this method allow to save at very high resolution?
Yes, its the resolution of all the photos combined
Thanks for the great and very easy to follow tutorial! I have one recommendation, try merging without Geometric Distortion Correction first and the go back and add it only if need be. I discovered this by accident. I had two sets of pans from the same morning different times. The first set I used the default settings which did not have Geometric Distortion Correction set and there was no need to do Adaptive Wide Angle correction. The second set I had Geometric Distortion Correction set and I had this banana shaped image like in your example. I did a bit… Read more »
Thanks for the tutorial! I was wondering: Once the panorama is created, it seems that you cannot make any alterations to it. No Brightness/Contrast, no Shadows/Highlights, etc. Is that the case? Thanks again!
I’m looking to see if I may be able to stitch images together from a MOVING platform, covering approximately one mile of shoreline, creating an extreme panoramic.
Any suggestions? Thank you.
Thanks Rich. I was looking for a quick, accurate description on how to do this for a friend (instead of writing it myself). Nicely, concisely done…thanks :)