Panoramic photo

[Ben]

I have an old school photo with the whole school on. Some 2.5-3.0 feet long and about 6 inches high. It is under glass and sealed so I do not want to remove it if possible. I have taken photos of sections and want to know if there is any way to join them together to make it into one picture without buying more software. I am using Photoshop 6 at the moment. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Stephen M]

Ben, if you can post three sequential shots or links to them as a starter, I am sure that we can help.

If the lighting and angle of the shots are all controlled and the same, then the 'stiching' process should be a easy (famous last words).

There are both automated and manual approaches, depending on the task (sounds like the manual methods are for you).

Stephen Marsh.

[Ben]

Stephen M

They are too big too be sent as a attachment so I will try to put them onto my web site. Please watch this space. It will be tomorrow now so I am not sure when that will be your time. If I am successful and don't count on it it will be www.bengunn.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk in the photo album. Thanks in advance.

[Ben]

Stephen M

I have now got the files onto my webpage they are all jpegs and are on the home page Picture1, Picture2 etc. Thanks again for your help.

[Doug Nelson]

This is actually one area where Elements beats Photoshop. It comes with a not bad panorama stitcher. If you have a copy (maybe with your scanner software) you can load the plugin for PS by putting it in the plugins folder.

[jrolinc]

A try...

Ben

Here is a copy I just did...I didn't have alot of time to mess more with levels, adjustments, etc...but you can get the right idea.

I used a Photo Stitcher application that came with my Canon Digital EOS 10D. It does a pretty decent job of things.

I had to do some cloning/pattern/smudging on bits, but it can be done.

All that is really left if the actual adjustments to the pic itself where some of the reflections showed up from your copying photo...

Hope you don't mind me giving it a try...I've been wanting to try more than 2 or 3 stitched pictures with this app.

[Ben]

Jeffrey

Cheers m8 that is really good. It looks like I will have to invest in some sort of prog to stich it all together. It looks like it will be worth the effort. Obviously I need it bigger because a lot of my peers on the photo have lost their copy and are asking for a copy of mine. Thanks again. Ben

[tgl]

I've looked at a lot of panorama software. The best free panorama software (actually, the best software I've used) is PanoTools, which you can find:

http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~dersch/

It handles panoramas of all types, including the kind you're trying to stitch together with that photograph, and has the ability to automatically adjust colors/lighting to make the panorama more seamless.

Also recommended are both PTAssembler and PTGui:

http://www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr.htm

http://www.ptgui.com/

... as front ends for PanoTools. You can try both of them out via 30 day trialware.

Finally, one neat way of displaying panoramas on the web is using Zoomify's free Flash viewer:

http://www.zoomify.com/ez/

There are some good examples on their site. Here is one panorama from Macau that I did on my trip to China:

http://www.brool.com/china/panorama/viewer.html?image=p10

Good luck.

tim