New to photoshop

[Roman Johnston]

Been trying to prefect my photoshop techniques especially in panoramas. I think I have the locking of the exposure down on my camera. (so seams arent evedent) but just wondering what I can do better on the processing end.

would appreciate any help/comments.

Here is the link:

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/rjtruthseeker/lst?.dir=/AZ+Pics&.order=&.view=l&.src=bc&.done=http%3a//briefcase.yahoo.com/

Thanks!!

Roman

[CJ Swartz]

I'd say you captured the beauty of my Arizona quite well.

[sdubose99]

Geez Roman, these are great. And you didn't use pano stitching s/w? Wow.

Yes, one of the biggest keys is to lock your exposure and overlap images enough to give you some room to work with masking, etc. to blend side to side images. You've done that, and you may also be using a tripod. Another good idea.

I really don't see anything "wrong" with your panos except maybe they looked a little dark to me. That might be the look you want, or they might look fine when you print them at home. You might play with levels or curves to bring out more detail in the dark areas.

By the way, an alternative if you are interested in delving into panos more... Panotools is free software that does a good job stitching single-row and mosaic images together. It's not documented particularly well, and not too user friendly but if you are patient and perhaps buy PTGui or similar front end for it... it generates .psd files including layers that can be fine tuned in Photoshop.

Good job!

Scott

[Roman Johnston]

Thanks Scott. Actually Photoshop Elements 2 has a rather robust feature for stitching panos together. It's under "File | Create Photomerge" I ts a feature I dont think Photoshop 7.0 has.

As for the darkness, they printe a little dark....I kind of like it, but this does bring up a question.

Without spending a mint on physical monitor calibration equipment (spider and software) what is the next best way to calibrate my monitor?

I have used the calibration stuff included with adobe, and it just isnt giving me the results that I would even call close....

and just fiddeling with the controls to get my tone range in alignment with my photo after printing, the settings would make my monitor darker than seems right.

Im gonna echo this in another part of the forum.....

Any suggestions?

Thanks!!!

Roman

[sdubose99]

Seems to me that if your display looks dark and your output looks dark, then they may be sort of aligned. What happens when you adjust image brightness/levels through Elements?

I'm certainly not an expert in this area, but here are two threads that look very useful.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4969&highlight=calibrate

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3953&highlight=calibrate

Send me your email address and I might be able to help a little further.... [email protected]

Scott