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Home , Cropping (image), Entrance pupil, Focal length

Taking Single Row Panoramic

1. SPECIAL EQUIPMENT NEEDED: There are three components that Really Right Stuff considers critical allowing shooting single-row panoramas quickly and eliminating Parallax: 1. Leveling Base with Clamp: Instead of fussing with your legs, you can use a panning clamp that has an Arca- Swiss style clamp, spirit level and a precision calibrated panning base. You can quickly level the base by loosening the ball and adjusting until its spirit level indicates the panning base is level. Shown is SUNWAYFOTO Leveling Base Kit which includes a Leveling Base, Arca-Swiss Clamp, and a 360° panning movement with laser-engraved index marks. 2. Nodal Slide: this eliminates parallax by allowing you to shift your & back and forth so that the No-Parallax Point of the lens can be correctly positioned directly over the tripod pivot center. Shown is Really Right Stuff 192 Precision Plus Package which allows for mounting camera bodies or collared by rotating the clamp and adjusting along the full length of the slide. 3. L-Plate: this allows you to securely mount your camera in portrait mode in the nodal slide clamp. Shown is Really Right Stuff B600D-L set bracket for Canon 650D/Rebel T4i camera. 2. USE A TRIPOD & LEVEL THE CAMERA It’s best to use a tripod when taking sequences of shots for panoramas, as this enables you to level the camera and pan accurately between each . Ideally, the camera should be in the upright (portrait) orientation. Not having a tripod should not preclude you from taking handheld panoramas; however, be careful to keep the lens as level as possible and carefully look in the viewfinder to determine the proper overlap points. A good technique to use is look at a point in the center then estimate a point half way from center which is where you will bring the left side of the view finder to insure approximately 25% overlap. Stand, well-grounded and balanced, in one place, and rotate your feet slightly with each shot. If you rotate your body instead, you'll find the camera starts to or roll. This can be prevented by holding the camera exactly the same in each shot and moving your feet slightly to give you the next angle. Concentrate on keeping the camera straight and aligned against the horizon. If you are taking a panoramic of a landscape where everything is far away, you can be considerably off the nodal point with little ill effect. Parallax is more of a problem when there are objects within a few feet of your camera or when you're shooting interior panoramas. 3. SELECT THE PROPER LENS — The Best for Capturing Panoramic Imagery: Contrary to what one would assume when talking about lens choices for shooting panoramic images, ultra wide-angle lenses are not necessarily the best choice when it comes to stitching individual images together with objects close up. The reason is that in the process of maintaining proper perspective and blending overlapping sections of adjacent images, the corners of each frame have to be cropped slightly, and the wider the lens, the more you have to crop, resulting in smaller, lower resolution image files. However, with today’s excellent software, you don’t have to shy away from a wide angle lenses. Very wide lenses will result in stronger geometric correction and also greater reduction in image quality due to the transformations that need to be applied. A lesser issue relates to falloff with wide-angle lenses. This can lead to but more significantly from the standpoint of a composite panorama, that vignetting creates additional challenges in terms of blending the photos together into a seamless result. The advantage of ultra wide lenses is that you will have a greater allowing better of close up objects.

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Be sure to take filters off your while shooting panoramas. It is OK to keep clear type filters on, as long as it is not introducing any vignetting to your images on the wide end. Definitely remove a circular polarizer filter because it will change the sky from photo to photo. 4. MAKE SIDE-TO-SIDE ADJUSTMENT: Once your camera is fastened to your pan head, move to the front of the unit so you’re looking into the lens. Center the lens directly over the pivot axis of the pan head. Explanation of No-Parallax or Nodal Point: Even if your setup is perfectly level, you won't be happy with the results until you eliminate image parallax. Parallax is defined as the shift in apparent object position while observed from different angles of view. Image parallax occurs when near and far objects don't align in overlapping images. For example, if you're shooting a scene that contains a fence line, each fencepost should line up with its twin in the next shot You can eliminate the effects of parallax by placing the optical center of the lens (not the camera) directly over the point of rotation (see illustration below). There is a point in lens geometry, called the Center of Perspective, Nodal point, or No-Parallax point, that does not change the relative appearance of objects when rotating the camera between frames. The nodal point of a lens is the point inside a lens where light paths cross before being focused onto the digital or plane. When taking pictures for a panoramic image, you want to rotate the camera around a line that runs through (or very close to) the nodal point of the camera lens.

1. Vertical red line: Nodal point of lens which is placed over the axis of rotation 2. Horizontal magenta line: lateral centerline of lens axis 3. Yellow lines: light rays cross in the optical center of the lens (No-Parallax point of lens)

5: HOW TO DETERMINE NO-PARALLAX POINT:  Place two vertical objects about one meter (40-in) apart. The objects need to be a vertical with straight edges. The far object should be taller than the near object so that you can see the relative movement between the two objects when panning your camera.  Using the equipment described in the beginning of the article, place your camera in front of the first object at a distance of approximately 2—3 feet. Once your camera is fastened to your pan head, move to the front of the camera so you’re looking into the lens. Center the lens directly over the pivot axis of the pan head. Then level the panning base using the spirit bubble on the end of the nodal slider.  Align the two vertical objects in the left hand side of the viewfinder so that the side of the rear object visually touches the edge of the front vertical object. You can use your viewfinder to align the objects; however, by using the live view/magnify feature of your camera, you will greatly increase alignment accuracy.  Start out by positioning the approximate center of your lens over the axis of rotation. With the objects aligned in the left side of your viewfinder, swing the camera to the left noting the alignment of the targets in the right- 2

hand side of the viewfinder. Unless you’ve managed to unwittingly locate the correct Nodal position, you should notice the two objects will either separate or overlap one another (see photo illustrations below).  Slide the camera back and forward on the nodal rail while rotating it from side to side until you find the position where the distant object do not move in relation to the front object. As you get closer to the nodal point, the shifting will get less. When the optical center of the lens (Nodal or No-Parallax point) is directly over the axis of rotation, the rear object will not appear to move relative to the front object when you pan the camera.  Nodal point behind the rotation axis: When you pan right, the rear object will separate to the right of the front object. Move the camera forward on the nodal slider and repeat the process.  Nodal point forward of the rotation axis: When you pan right, the front object will be right of the rear object or most likely the front object will cover up the rear object. Move the camera back on the nodal slider and repeat the process.  After determining the Nodal point for your camera lens at a given focal setting, make a mental note of the camera mounting slider position in relation to the Nodal slider. Record your results so you can repeat the setup at a later time.  If you are using a , you will need to determine the nodal point for each focal setting you use.

Left photo shows the pencils aligned in the left hand side of the viewfinder. The center & right photos show the objects when the camera is panned to the left placing the objects in the right side of the viewfinder. Setup procedures: Two boards were drilled to accept a pencil and a small level was used to insure the pencils were vertically straight. Different pencil were used to help differentiate between the two objects. Photos were taken with an setting of f/17 and the camera was placed 15.5-in front of the first pencil based on a DOF calculation. The photo on the left shows the pencils in the left side of the viewfinder were aligned by moving the front board sideways (be sure to use the magnified Live View for all viewing vs. the optical viewfinder).

Correct Position illustration shows the objects stay aligned with one another when panning from the right to left. The optical center of the lens (No-Parallax or Nodal point) is directly over the tripod axis of rotation. DETERMINE NODAL POINT IN THE FIELD: First locate a close vertical edge or line, such as a doorway or edge of a building. Position your camera and tripod about two feet away. Begin by looking through the camera’s viewfinder; then find another vertical edge or line that is far away, such as another building, telephone pole, light post, etc. Align the two vertical objects so they appear to just touch in the left hand side of the viewfinder. Pan left so the two objects move 3 over to the right hand side of the viewfinder. If the right hand view position shows the rear object separating to the right of the front object, then the No-Parallax Point is behind the axis of rotation. Move the camera forward and repeat the process. If the front object covers the rear object or the rear object moves left of the front object, then the No- Parallax Point is ahead the axis of rotation. Move the camera back and repeat the process. When the optical center of the lens is directly over the axis of rotation, the rear object will not appear to move relative to the front object. Alternative method — Visual: Place the of the camera over the axis of rotation. The entrance pupil is quite simply the hole in the center of the iris. Old lenses are easier to see the iris than modern lenses. The quick and simple way to set the correct position of the camera on the panoramic head is to view the camera from the front and set the entrance pupil directly over the axis of rotation. 6. SET CAMERA f-stop: Decide how much depth of field you want across the entire scene and choose an appropriate aperture. Normally set your aperture to the sweet spot of the lens — 2 to 3 stops down from wide open aperture or “maximum” aperture. Spectrum of full aperture stops (1/3-stops in lower case) are: f/1.0, 1.1, 1.3, f/1.4, 1.6, 1.8, f/2.0, 2.2, 2.8, f/2.8, 3.2,3.6, f/4.0, 4.5, 5.0, f/5.6, 6.3, 7.1 f/8.0, 9.0, 10.1 f/11.0, 12.7, 14.3, f/16.0, 18.0, 20.2, f/22.0 25.4, 28.5, f/32.0, f/45.0, f64.0. Therefore, if your lens has a maximum aperture of f/4.0, two stops down would be f/8.0 and three stops down would be f/11; therefore, you would set your aperture to f/9.0 or f/10.1. Since most panoramas are of places and not people, you can set maximum crispness and depth of field out to infinity by focusing on the (use a Depth of Field calculator or chart — see below). To do this, you need to focus at the ‘hyperfocal distance’: for a given focal length and aperture, there will be a distance where setting your point of focus will result in the entire scene being within the depth of field. The hyperfocal distance of any shot depends on four factors: Sensor Size, Aperture Setting, Focal Length of Lens, and Subject Distance. Many use a rule of thumb which states that you should focus roughly 1/3 of the way into your scene in order to achieve maximum sharpness throughout. While this is sometimes helpful, it is rarely optimal. By focusing at the hyperfocal distance (HFD), the entire scene (and more beyond) will fall within the depth of field. The Near Acceptable limit Distance is HFD/2. For a Canon Digital SLR camera with a 1.6 and a of 0.019-mm, the Hyperfocal Distance calculations are:

HFD 16mm 18mm 24mm 35mm 50mm 85mm 135mm 200mm 300mm 400mm f/2.8 15.7-ft 19.8-ft 35.2-ft 74.9-ft 153-ft 441-ft 1113-ft 2443-ft 5496-ft 9769-ft f/4.0 11.1-ft 14-ft 24.9-ft 53-ft 108-ft 312-ft 787-f 1727-ft 3886-ft 6908-ft f/5.6 7.87-ft 10-ft 17.7-ft 37.5-ft 77-ft 221-ft 557-ft 1222-ft 2748-ft 4885-ft f/8.0 5.58-ft 7-ft 12.5-ft 26.6-ft 54-ft 156-ft 394-ft 864-ft 1943-ft 3455-ft f/11 3.96-ft 5-ft 8.9-ft 18.8-ft 38-ft 111-ft 279-ft 611-ft 1374-ft 2443-ft f/16 2.82-ft 3.6-ft 6.3-ft 13.3-ft 27-ft 78-ft 197-ft 432-ft 972-ft 1728-ft f/22 2.01-ft 2.5-ft 4.5-ft 9.5-ft 19.2-ft 55.4-ft 140-ft 306-ft 688-ft 1222-ft f/32 1.43-ft 1.8-ft 3.2-ft 6.7-ft 13.7-ft 39.3-ft 99-ft 217-ft 486-ft 864-ft Note: Above distances were calculated using the calculator found at: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html. 4

Example determining acceptable focus based on the table above: For 24mm focal length & an aperture setting of f/8.0, you will need to focus at a distance of 12.5-feet and everything from 6.25-ft (12.5/2) to infinity will be acceptably sharp. When shooting Landscape photos and trying to have something close in the photo to give perspective, you will need to use a wide-angle lens to have all portions of the image in focus. You can easily calculate the NEAR and FAR in-focus distances based on subject distance by referring to the DOF Master web site. For example, if you are using a 100mm lens set to f/8 and the distance to the subject is 2.5-ft, then the near focus limit is 2.48-ft and far limit is 2.53-ft for a total in focus range of 0.05-ft (0.6-in or 39/64-in). Also they have applications for your iPhone/iPod touch by going to http://iphone.dofmaster.com or for your Android phone go to http://dofmaster.com/m. 6. Camera Setup: Set the camera to and focus the camera on an object that is at the hyperfocal distance. Take a test shot and review your photos in magnified view on your camera’s LCD, to check sharpness throughout the scene. Hold the button down to reach maximum magnification and scroll around the image. Set and White Balance: The most important thing in panoramas is consistency of exposures. It is imperative that no matter how bright or dark parts of the scene might be, your images must have the same exposure for each shot. To ensure consistency in color and brightness, first select a Manual White Balance setting that most closely matches the ambient lighting conditions – Sunny, Cloudy or Shade, for example. Determine the correct exposure settings (aperture, ISO, speed) and then set your camera to Manual exposure mode. Do not meter off the brightest or darkest areas of the scene, but rather try to find a “sweet middle” and set your exposure based on that area for the entire panorama. Take a couple of pictures and make sure that the images are not too overexposed or underexposed for the brightest and darkest parts of the scene and review the Histogram to make sure that the highlights are not clipped. Keep the exposure setting locked for each shot in the sequence otherwise the sky color in particular will be different from frame to frame. Be sure to shoot in RAW file format for best results. 7. Plan the shot: The first thing you need to do is identify what you want to capture. It’s important to know where you want to begin and end your panorama image. Avoid shooting panoramas with trees, bushes and other objects in the foreground, unless you have corrected for parallax. If you are shooting a scene that is far away from you, the panorama will stitch perfectly, because the software will not have trouble dealing with parallax errors. Watch for wind and moving objects. Wind can move tree leaves, grass, water and sand in different directions, which will spoil your panorama. Only shoot in windy conditions when the wind strongly moves everything in one direction. Avoid taking pictures of moving water waves. Bright objects such as windows and the disc of the sun, can change depending on the angle of the camera, so be sure that they don’t fall on stitch lines (overlap areas). 8. Taking the Shots: To begin with, you need to overlap each image. Ensure that each has roughly 25% overlap with all other adjacent photos. The percent of overlap certainly does not have to be exact; too high of an overlap could mean that you have to take far more photos for a given , but too little of an overlap may provide too short a region over which to blend or redirect the placement of seams. Too much overlap is generally not a good idea, as this might confuse the stitching software. Starting at the left-hand side of your scene, capture each overlapping image from left to right. You can shoot from right to left, but all of the software auto-stitching features are designed to grab the images in numerical order (by using the file name) and assemble them left-to-right. Try to take all the images as quickly as possible without inducing camera shake since you will probably have moving objects such as clouds. Using the Pan Rotation Calibrated Scale: Begin by placing the starting point of your panorama in the left hand side of your viewfinder and then note the point in the right hand side of the view finder and pan to that point. Determine the 5 number of degrees you panned by looking at the precision calibrated panning base just below the registration mark (arrow). For each subsequent shot, move that number of degrees less 25% overlap amount. For example, if you panned a total of 40-degrees, then 25% of 40 would be 10 degrees. You would pan 30-degrees (40 - 10) for each shot using the pan rotation scale. Use a cable release to capture shake free images. One useful tip is to shoot a pre shot with one finger in the frame to let you know the start point of the panoramic sequence and then a post shot after the panoramic with two fingers in the frame to let you know that the series has ended. In summary: Remember the important points to plan ahead, shoot fast, shoot in full manual mode, and overlap the photos. Review photos: Once you completed taking the pictures, visually inspect all images on your camera’s LCD screen to insure that you did not encounter any problems with your setup. Create a Photomerge Composition Stitching software includes: Adobe Photoshop/Elements Photomerge, PTGui, Autopano Pro, and Hugin. IMPORT & ADJUST YOUR IMAGES USING LIGHTROOM:  In the Library module you can select all your images and then view all of them on the screen by depressing the Survey Mode button (found in the row with Grid, Loupe & Compare view).  To see information overlay above your image toggle the “i” key (change settings select View > View Options):

 Then open the Develop Module: It is important to always fix lens vignetting and distortion through Lens Corrections panel in Develop Module. It is especially important with Brenizer method panoramas, which are taken at very wide aperture settings that result in high vignetting.  Next, if you have a lighting condition DNG profile you obtained with a Color Checker Passport, select it under Camera Calibration > Profile. Make sure you calibrate your monitor so the display colors will then be correct.  It is important that you don’t crop at this point. Some say that you shouldn’t make any major changes to the exposure, etc. prior to taking the photos into Photoshop. However, you will lose all your Adobe Camera Raw adjustment abilities if you don’t process at this point. Therefore, many believe you should adjust the white balance, exposure, and anything else you’d want applied before rendering the images into Photoshop.  Important points when processing your RAW files in Lightroom.  You might want to start with the Highlights & Shadow sliders first. Sometimes if you move the Highlights slider all the way to the left and Shadows all the way right, it will result in a good looking adjustment.  Hold down the ALT key and slide the White & Black sliders. You will see where clipping begins using this method. You can slightly clip the Blacks but not the Whites.  It is a good idea not to increase/decrease Contrast at this point but use the Luminance & Clarity sliders since these sliders do not change the Histogram as much as does the Contrast slider.  Move the Temperature slider to see if you want a Warmer or Cooler image. You can use the eyedropper to select areas in the image or use the Color Checker Passport/18% gray card to determine temperature.  If you have blown out portions of the sky due to the sun, you can tone down that portion by using the Graduated Filter. Also you can make individual adjustments using the Adjustment brush.

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 Reduce noise: In the Detail module you can reduce noise by moving the Luminance & Color sliders. Image noise includes luminance (grayscale) noise, which makes an image look grainy, and Chroma (color) noise, which is usually visible as colored artifacts in the image. Photos taken with high ISO speeds can have noticeable noise. Drag a 1:1 image preview in the Detail panel of the Develop module to see the area of the photo that looks grainy or displays colored artifacts (little flecks of different colors). First step whenever attacking a noisy image is to start by reducing Color Noise because it is more readily visible. Remember that you will be unable to eliminate 100% of all color inaccuracies, but you are looking for a sweet spot that eliminates most of the color issues. Color comes defaulted at 25. This is usually good enough. However, if you shot your image at a very high ISO, it would be a good idea to bump up Color to around 50. The Luminance slider functions much like a blur filter. Too much Luminance will also ruin the detail in your image. Typically, you can leave Luminance at around 30-40. It’s recommend that you stick with this range unless an image absolutely needs Luminance to be higher. The Luminance Detail slider preserves the detail in the image. The lower you go on Detail, the less detail you will preserve. Typically, leave Detail at 50, which is the default.  Adjust sharpening. If there is noise in the image you probably do not want to exceed a value of 70. To reduce the effect of noise caused by sharpening, hold down the ALT key and depress Masking slider. The entire image will turn white indicating that a value you set is being applied to the entire image. Move the Masking slider to the right and flat areas of the image will turn black, removing the sharpening in those areas and reducing the created noise. While masking is not very useful for images that have too much detail and too many edges all over the image, it works magic for images that isolate subjects from the background.  SYNCHROIZE: Once you have made the adjustment to one of the images, you must apply identically all the adjustments to the other images. Click on the first photo you adjusted and hold down the SHIFT key and select all the photos. Then depress the SYNC button and select CHECK ALL and then depress SYNCHROIZE.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you used a brush tool to darken/lighten a specific area(s) in one of the photos you would uncheck Brush under Local Adjustments. If you used the Graduated Filter to change the color of the sky, make sure that “Graduated Filter” box is checked so all the photos will have equal sky treatment.  Review all the images to insure they look correct before merging and make any Dodge & Burn Adjustments  Select ALL the files and right click the image and select Edit In > Merge to Panorama in Photoshop. PHOTOSHOP MERGING PROCEDURES: When you choose Photomerge from Lightroom it actually hands off all the files to Photoshop and the Photomerge window will automatically open. All you need to do is to select one of the Layout mapping methods. 1. You can also launch the files directly in Adobe Photoshop by Choose File > Automate > Photomerge. 7

2. Under Source Files in the Photomerge dialog box, choose one of the following from the Use menu: Files: Generates the Photomerge composition using individual files. Folders: Uses all the images stored in a folder to create the Photomerge composition. 3. Specify which images to use by doing one of the following:  To select image files or a folder of images, click the Browse button and navigate to the files or folder.  To use the images currently open in Photoshop, click Add Open Files.  To remove images from the Source File list, select the file and click the Remove button.

Auto: Photoshop analyzes the source images and applies either a Perspective, Cylindrical, and Spherical layout, depending on which produces a better Photomerge.

Perspective: Creates a consistent composition by designating one of the source images (by default, the middle image) as the reference image. The other images are then transformed (repositioned, stretched or skewed as necessary) so that overlapping content across layers is matched. Cylindrical: Reduces the “bowtie” distortion that can occur with the Perspective layout by displaying individual images as on an unfolded cylinder. Overlapping content across files is still matched. Cylindrical mapping is best suited for creating wide panoramas or 360° panoramas.

Perspective Mapping –significant bowtie Cylindrical Mapping applied 8

Spherical: Aligns and transforms the images as if they were for mapping the inside of a sphere. If you have taken a set of images that cover 360 degrees, use this for 360 degree panoramas. You might also use Spherical to produce nice panoramic results with other file sets. Collage: Aligns the layers and matches overlapping content and transforms (rotate or scale) any of the source layers. Reposition: Aligns the layers and matches overlapping content, but does not transform (stretch or skew) any of the source layers. This selection should be considered since the results can sometimes be better than AUTO. For this photo, Reposition Mapping resulted in less transparent areas.

Blend Images Together: Finds the optimal borders between the images and creates seams based on those borders and matches color. With Blend Images Together turned off, a simple rectangular blend is performed. This may be preferable if you intend to retouch the blending masks by hand. However, you should turn this feature on to blend the sky and the other tones in the image by turning on this feature. Vignette Removal: Removes and performs in images that have darkened edges caused by lens flaws or improper lens shading. Geometric Distortion Correction: Compensates for barrel, pincushion, or fisheye distortion. Check “Blend Images Together” and Click OK. If you used a very wide angle lens, you may want to check Vignette Removal and click Geometric Distortion Correction especially if you shot buildings which helps with straitening. Depending on your computer, the number of images being stitched, their resolution, chosen layout and complexity of the panorama, the process of merging into a single piece may take anywhere from a few seconds to half an hour or more. PHOTOSHOP ADJUSTMENTS: Photoshop creates one multi-layer image from the source images, adding layer masks as needed to create optimal blending where the images overlap. You can edit the layer masks or add adjustment layers to further fine tune the different areas of the panorama. Merge Layers: To make additional adjustments to the panorama such as straightening a horizon or cropping, you will need to merge all the layers together. Flattening combines all visible layers into a background layer. Photoshop deletes hidden layers and fills any transparent areas with white. Flattening is usually done when you’re completely finished editing your image. To flatten, choose Layer >Flatten Image or select Flatten Image from the Layers panel menu. Photoshop doesn’t prompt you with a warning like, “Are you sure you really want to do this?” But if you mistakenly flatten your image, you can undo the command immediately by choosing Edit > Undo. If you go ahead and perform another action, then undo your mistake by using the History panel. You can also select FLATTEN by selecting Layer > Flatten Image or depress CTRL+E which will merge down. The best way to merge all visible layers and keep visible all your layers is to depress CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E to create a new layer which is a flatten version of all visible layers. If you hold down the ALT key and click on each layer mask in turn you will notice that Photoshop uses hard-edged layer masks to hide or reveal the piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up the final panorama. Photoshop seamlessly joins 9 the layers and adjusts or ‘blends’ the color and tonality of the on each layer. Any pixels concealed by the layer masks have not been subjected to these color and tonal adjustments. Straighten areas of image: To straighten the image so the horizon is straight or vertical features are not leaning, select Filter > Adaptive Wide Angle. Select the Constraint tool from the Tools palette at the very top left of the window. Start by drawing the Constraint line next to the object that needs straightening. To edit the constraint, click one of the end points and drag it to realign the adjacent object. You can also right click the end white anchor point and select Horizontal or Vertical or click the starting point for the line, then depress the SHIFT key and click on the end point. The line will then go Horizontal or Vertical depending on the direction you drew the line. When you tag on the line, two interior white dots with a circle will appear. By clicking on one of these points you can rotate the line and the adjacent image will rotate. By clicking on one of the end white points you can move the entire line to the new perspective and that portion of the image will follow. Such distortion corrections can create large transparent areas along the edges of the photo. You can crop or use Content-Aware tools to fill these areas Transform Image: Sometime the image will look squashed but you can rectify that by stretching the image. Depress CTRL+T (or Edit > Free Transform) which will bring up the Transform tool. Then move the sides out. Note you can proportionally stretch the entire image by holding down the SHIFT key and dragging on of the end points. Crop and Fill Transparencies: You can crop the image to remove the transparent pixels around the edges OR just use the option of “Content-Aware Fill” to remove the transparent areas. Content-Aware Fill method: Use one of the selection tools such as the Rectangular Marquee Tool and select an area slightly beyond the transparent line into the image. Then select Edit > Fill. In the Fill dialog box select under Contents/Use Content-Aware, blend mode Normal and 100% Opacity. Click OK Use the Magic Wand tool and click the transparency. Expand the selection by selecting Select > Modify > Expand. Select between 3 to 5 pixels to increase the size of the selection. Then depress SHIFT+F5 keys to bring up the Fill dialog box, select Content-Aware and click OK. Finally depress CTRL+D to deselect the selection. Spot Healing Brush: Adjust your brush size then move the brush over one corner of the image edge where there is transparency. Depress the SHIFT key and click on one corner and then move over to the other side and click again. The entire area will become content-aware filled. Clone Stamp tool uses pixels from one area of an image to replace the pixels in another part of the image. Remove unwanted objects in the image by using the Spot Healing brush, Clone Stamp tool or Content-Aware fill method You can take your image into your favorite plug-in like Topaz Labs Adjust (optimizes exposure, colour and detail strength for dynamic, HDR-style images), Clarity (contrast enhancing software program which dynamically boosts the contrast on your photographs without degrading the image quality with halos or artifacts.), Detail (selectively control 3 levels of image detail without creating halos or edge artefacts), and DeNoise (removes noise, colour noise and banding while recovering and preserving image detail). With NIK software you can use Sharpener Pro 3 which allows selective sharpening; Define 2 which allows selective noise reduction; and Color Efex Pro 4 which allows colour adjustments,

10 including monochrome conversions and film effects; Silver Efex Pro 2 for making black-and-white conversions and Viveza 2 which allows you to make selective brightness, contrast and white balance adjustments. You can see different information on the image by clicking on the Document information arrow at the bottom left of Photoshop window. For Document Sizes Information the number on the left represents the printing size of the image—approximately the size of the saved, flattened file in Adobe Photoshop format. The number on the right indicates the file’s approximate size, including layers and channels. You can also select Document Dimensions and click on “DOC” and see and inch dimensions. Save your image, as a TIFF or PSD to maintain maximum quality. JPEG files will be smaller file size by compressing the image in a way that retains detail which matters most and discarding details deemed to be less visually impactful (up to 80% of data can be lost). If you retain your Layers, the file size will be very large so you should FLATTEN the layers before saving. SHIFT+CTRL+S will bring up the Save As dialog window. FINAL LIGHTROOM PROCESSING With the panoramic image opened in Lightroom make your final adjustments including moving the Highlight/Shadow sliders as well as the Temperature slider for a more warm/cooler look. If you have areas that you want to Dodge (lighten) or Burn (darken) then select the Adjustment Brush: To lighten or darken an area of the image select the Adjustment Brush and next to Effect make sure it says Custom or select Exposure. Then set your Feather (100 is maximum feather), Flow to 100 and Density to 100. Paint over the areas you want to lighten or darken. If you check Show Selected Mask Overlay (located below and left of the Image area) the area you paint will become a reddish color. Note: At the bottom left of the Adjustment Brush panel you have a small white square. Click on it to see before and after view. Once you make an adjustment, you can change it by moving the sliders until you click on DONE or NEW adjustment brush. To change color: Adjust the Temperature and Hue sliders. Post Crop Vignetting: To add a Vignette, open the Effects panel. You must slide the top slider off zero to add a vignette. Suggest that you move the sliders to the far left to see clearly the effect of each slider. Preparing Files for Photo Lab Printing  Decide on the size of print that you would like to order from your lab. An 8″x10″ print is the product of a 4×5 ratio. You need know the ratio of paper width to height to see if it matches up with the ratio of your original capture.  If the ratio of the paper and the ratio of original digital capture match then you can skip cropping to fit the intended output paper size. If the ratios do not match then you will need to use Lightroom’s Crop Tool to fit part of your image within the boundaries of your target paper size. Cropping with the appropriate fixed helps to ensure that you get the right shaped image back from your photo lab.  Next, make a copy of your image that is ready for your photo lab using Lightroom’s Export Dialog. Right-click on your selected photo and select “Export” from the drop-down menu. Your print-ready file should be sized appropriately to fit your paper choice and it may also need a new filename, a new color profile, and the appropriate type of output sharpening. Normally save the file as a JPEG, but check the Lab’s requirements first for all of their requiements.  Deliver the print-ready file to your photo lab.  Recommended Photo Lab is: Bay Photo, Santa Cruz, CA, http://www.bayphoto.com/

This article was prepared by John Williams for the benefit of Redlands Camera Club members (for instructional purposes only).

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