Click on any phrase to play the video from that point.
[♪♪] [lynda.com presents]
[excerpt from: Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 for Windows - Essential Training with Jan Kabili]
[Kabili] Sometimes you want to photograph a really wide scene,
but you don't have a lens wide enough to take it all in.
You can take a sequence of photos, overlapping each one slightly,
and then have Elements seamlessly stitch them all together for you in one continuous photo,
a panorama. [Watch Photoshop Elements Essential Training at www.lynda.com/pse7]
When you're shooting to make a panorama, here are a couple of hints.
Put your camera on a tripod so that it remains steady as you rotate the camera body
to take your sequence of pictures.
If you don't have a tripod, then put your camera on a flat surface,
like a table or a wall or whatever is handy.
Another tip is if you have auto exposure on in your camera, turn it off
because it will change the exposure automatically between shots
and you'll see a difference from shot to shot in your panorama.
And don't change the focal length of your lens in between shots either.
And as you're shooting, overlap each shot by about 30% or a third.
That's usually enough information for Elements to successfully stitch the photos together.
Now let's see how to make a panorama in Elements.
I'm working in subfolder 1304_panorama inside the chapter 13 exercise files.
The first step is to select all the photos that you want to use.
I'll click on the first file in this folder, hold the Shift key,
and click on the last.
Notice that I've named each one of these files in sequential order pano1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
That's a good idea when you're making a panorama
so that all the files are in the right order initially in the Panorama dialog box.
Now I'm going to go to the File menu at the top of the screen and choose New
and Photomerge Panorama.
I'm now working in the Organizer, but you'll find this very same command in the Editor
if you're working there.
When I release the mouse, Elements opens the Editor,
opens all 6 of the files, and opens the Photomerge dialog box.
Here I can choose to use the open files or a folder of files.
I'll select Files, and I'll click Add Open Files.
All 6 of my files are now listed here.
If I hadn't named them in order and they came in here in an order that needed to be adjusted,
I could click on any one of these and just drag it above another in this list.
I'm going to leave the layout at Auto.
If I don't like the result, I'll just come in and do it again,
experimenting with some of these other layout options.
I'm going to click OK, and that causes Elements to begin to make the panorama for me.
It's gone ahead and resized each of the photos and stitched it together with its neighbor.
So that I can see the result better, I'm going to close the Task pane on the right
by clicking on its border.
I'll make sure I have the panorama selected,
and I'm going to double click the Hand tool to fit it on screen.
Of course I don't want this scalloped edge on my final photo,
and I don't want to see the gray and white checkerboard that represents transparent pixels.
To fix that, I'm going to select the Crop tool in the toolbox
and I'll come into the photo and click and drag,
making my crop bounding box as big as it can be without going into the transparent pixels.
When I'm done adjusting my bounding box, I'll click the green check mark to commit the crop.
And there's my panorama.
This is only showing at 49%, so you can imagine how big it really is
and how impressive it will be when printed.
The next time you're confronted with a grand scene like this one,
which is my hometown of Boulder, Colorado,
try taking some photos for a panorama and let Elements stitch the photos together for you.
[Watch Photoshop Elements 7 Essential Training at www.lynda.com/pse7]