Getting started: Making a panorama

Combine a sequence of photos into a seamless panorama in Adobe® Photoshop® Elements. Photographer Jan Kabili shares secrets for taking photos for a panoramic image.

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Requirements

To complete this tutorial, install the following software:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or later

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Tips for shooting a panorama

The following are tips when shooting to make a panorama:

• 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 do not have a tripod then put your camera on a flat surface, like a table or a wall.
• Turn off auto exposure because it changes the exposure automatically between shots and you will see a difference from shot to shot in your panorama.
• Do not change the focal length of your lens between shots.
• As you are shooting, overlap each shot by about 30%. That overlap is usually enough information for Photoshop Elements to successfully stitch the photos together.
• Name the photos sequentially, such as pana01, pana02, pana03, and so on. before adding them to Photoshop Elements.

Adding photos to the panorama

The first step to creating a panorama in Photoshop Elements is to select the photos that you want to use.

1. Start Photoshop Elements and open the Organizer workspace.
2. Select the series of photos for the panorama.
3. Choose File > New > Photomerge Panorama.

   The Editor workspace opens and the photos are added to a new project. The Photomerge dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 1.

   

   Figure 1: Photomerge dialog box

4. Click to open the Use menu.

   You can choose to use the files you already opened or a folder of files.

5. Select Files.
6. Click Add Open Files.

   The files you selected are listed in the dialog box. If you named them in sequential order, they are in the correct order from the beginning. If not, you can order them by dragging them up or down in the dialog box.

7. Leave the Layout set to Auto, and click OK.

   Photoshop Elements creates the panorama using the selected photos, as shown in Figure 2.

   

   Figure 2: Completed panorama

Cropping the panorama

Photoshop Elements resized each of the photos and stitched them together. YClose the Task pane to see the final panorama better, if necessary. Notice the photo has a scalloped edge. You do not want the scalloped edge in the final photo and you do not want to see the gray and white checkerboard that represents transparent pixels. To fix that, you can crop the image.

1. In the toolbox, select the Crop tool.
2. Starting in the upper-left corner, drag to draw a crop bounding box as large as it can be without going into the transparent pixels. See Figure 3.

   

   Figure 3: Crop bounding box

3. If needed, use the anchor points to resize the crop bounding box.
4. Click the Commit button (green check mark) to crop the image. The image is cropped.

The next time you are confronted with a grand scene like this one, try taking some photos for a panorama. Then, let Photoshop Elements stitch the photos together for you.

Where to go from here

If you enjoyed this tutorial, check out these other resources to help get you started using Photoshop Elements.

• Photoshop Elements Essentials for Windows tutorials on lynda.com
• Photoshop Elements shows on Adobe TV
• Photoshop Elements Help and Support
• Printing your photos

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