Re: Splicing Software

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From: Doug Niven (nimoys@loxinfo.co.th)
Date: 01/05/01-06:53:17 AM Z


After much experimentation and wasting $ on various stitching programs, I
have discovered the best by far is to use Photoshop. This technique
leaves no "residue" or hints that they were stitched together, and it
also looks the best by far. It may sound difficult at first, but I'd
suggest spending the 30 minutes to figure it out. After that it becomes
automatic and is actually easier than any of the commercial programs, and
takes a lot less time. I've been using this to paste together both very
high res files (which the commercial software won't stitch) and low res,
it works equally well with both. I've been stitching together panoramas
taken by Vietnamese war photographers 25-30 years ago, and you should see
their faces once they see the finished product! This technique makes
perfect seamless prints. And you will have a lot of flexibility that
stitching software won't give you.

This is it:

Its all about adding something called a layer mask (and then Reveal All),
and the whole process is explained very clearly on the URL below.

http://www.leppphoto.com/TechTips/pano.html

Once you have your two layers, Go to Edit > Free Transform (or command
T). Then you can turn, rotate, your image, then hit Command W to Apply,
then hit cancel because it thinks you're closing the file, and it's done.
Works like a breeze and once you've tried it a few times it takes hardly
no time at all.

One tip that someone else suggested--once once you get the above
technique mastered--but I still think the above method is the easiest:

>My slight difference in the method is instead of using erase, you can simply
>select the area that you want to delete, "feather" with large pixel value,
>and delete. You get a soft edge that way.

>Also, in aligning the image, it would help if you invert one layer so that
>when the two layers are perfectly aligned, all you see if smooth gray. When
>they are not well aligned, you see bas relief. It is quite a useful "trick."

Good luck, let me know how it goes. I bet you'll never look back!

Cheers, Doug
Bangkok

Doug Niven, editor

"Vietnam: Photographs from the Other Side of the War"
to be released in Spring 2002 from National Geographic Books.

** see my first book "The Killing Fields" at www.twinpalms.com **


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