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When last we visited the exciting world of
making panorama images with Photoshop, I used a relatively
common subject as an example: a level drawbridge over Florida's
Intracoastal Waterway close by my home. But the best panoramic
views are often from a high vantage point looking down. And
these present a problem of distortion. In this column, I'll deal
with combining three views of France's Dordogne River shot from
extreme angles.
The actual view encompasses a bend in the river
sweeping by the village of le Roc Gageac. Using the widest angle
of my zoom lens, I shot three images with about a one-third
overlap.
I followed all the steps outlined in the first
pano column: resizing the photos; putting each of them on its
own layer; and creating a larger canvas size to accommodate the
overall panorama.
While my image was resized to 3 inches in
height, I set the New Canvas Size to 5 inches high for a little
wiggle room. The canvas width, set from the left center, was 10
inches. Note that I made the background layer black in order to
see the rather washed out sky as I worked.
All three images are now on the background in
separate layers and have been overlapped using the lower opacity
layer technique previously described. Note that each layer is
slightly higher than the previous one, due to the fact that I
attempted to keep the center of the image constant with each
shot.
Using Levels (L), I matched the colors of each layer as closely
as possible, using adjacent foliage colors. In figure 2, you
should be able to see the vertical lines where each image
overlaps. The first step is to use the Eraser tool (E) to
eliminate these contrasting vertical butt lines and blend the
image as realistically as possible.
I'll reiterate that the goal is to create a
detailed image of framed peripheral vision but not to attempt to
fool the viewer into believing it was made with a single
exposure.
I set the Eraser tool's options to Airbrush and
selected a 100 pixel soft brush tip and 50% pressure for my
Wacom tablet. Selecting the top layer (from the right), I began
painting gently over the butt revealing detail from the layer
beneath. In the screen shot, the upper arrowhead points to the
untouched butt line. The lower arrow shows where the river has
been blended in a sharp curve that isn't really there but it's
the impression that counts.
Don't attempt to get perfect blends by painting
out with the eraser. The blends get refined even more in the
next step.
After flattening the image, I use the Crop tool
(C) to create a single image. Now it's time to fine-tune the
panorama by cloning out duplicate details.
The close-up screen shot above shows that the
houses of the village directly below my vantage point have been
duplicated due to the extreme angle of view. Eraser painting
here would have just revealed more duplicate detail. Instead, I
select the Rubber Stamp tool (S) and from its options, use the
same airbrush tip and pressure.
I decided to cover up the closer set of houses
by cloning foliage. Using a variety of trees of the same shade
from different areas as my target point, I carefully brushed in
trees to eliminate the roofs. Here, you must be careful not to
just sweep the clone tool down from the target, creating a
repetitive pattern. Instead, select different areas as a target
by Option (PC-Alt)-clicking.
Now the village is a single set of houses. The
residents might be a bit miffed that I've messed with their
property lines but that's life in the pano world.
The horizon and skyline present a different
challenge. I used the clone tool to clone sky into the areas
where the hills did not meet, then targeted the hilltops to
create a new horizon. Due to the soft pressure used with my
Wacom brush, the overall effect is of a cloud or fog bank coming
through the gaps of the hills.
Once you get used to shooting panoramas, you'll
see scenes where the subject matter screams for pano treatment
but the terrain is definitely working against you. This was the
case in Le Baux, an Iron Age fortress and medieval village in
Provence.
Here, I chose to make a continuous set of images
matching one to the next but not trying to maintain an
impossibly level horizon. If I had cropped the entire image to a
rectangular frame, the effect of the steep hillside and
surrounding cliffs would have been lost.
Instead, I matched the images in stair step
fashion and then outlined them with the Pen tool (P) to create
the irregular frame. Making my paths into a selection (Command
[PC-Control]-Enter in 6.0, just Enter in 5.5 or earlier), I then
sent the image to its own layer (Command/Ctrl-J) and then gave
it a drop shadow.
I really like the effect and so do others. It's
sold several times.
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