Can anyone help? Merges

[Eve]

The attached are 2 merged photos I did yesterday One has 3 pics , the other 5. I cant seem to get rid of the join marks. Have tried airbrushing, smudging and cloning. Any suggestions ? :)

[D_Spider]

Hi, Eve--

Yes, I can help. I need to know what tools your graphics application has, to know which to tell you to use. So: do you have a "cloning" tool (changes pixels of one RGB value to another--you right-click on the source, then left-click [hold down] on the target, and effectively you've moved light blue pixels into the darker blue erge area)? do you have a color-switching tool (you can tell it to change "this blue" [using the eyedropper, of lightness 215 e.g.] into "that blue" [using color picker, of lightness 235, e.g.])? does your application have a spray-can tool the density and opacity of which is variable? I'll attach a screen shot of my toolbar, hoping the icons are pretty similar (they have to be, somewhat). Then tell me what tools you have, and we can fix those merges. Also: can you work with multiple layers? Does your eraser allow you to adjust opacity & density?

One way to go (where the sky shows the merge) would be to clone lighter blue onto the dark, and do it with no RGB tolerance and with only 10-15 % density and opacity; it goes a bit slowly, but very gradually so you can stop before the retouching is too obvious. Likewise, spray or airbrush lighter colors onto the darker, but with hardly any density at all, so just scattered pixels of lighter appear, then use another color blue and spray that (changing the density so the pattern of sprayed pixels is different).

[Eve]

Thanks D. I am using a very basic editor,Arcsoft PhotoStudio. I had already tried the cloning tool and made a real mess of things. My Spray tool has no variation but I have had another go at them and realise I am too impatient. I will work on them some more and see if I can improve on results. I see there is a spray tool in MS Paint with variable sizes so will also give that a try. :)

[phil]

Eve if you post the two full sized images here i will merge them for you if you want.

[Eve]

Thats a nice offer Phil, thank you. Unfortunately I have deleted the originals!
Your pic of the leaves is just beautiful.

[phil]

Thankyou :)

[johng]

Hello Eve, I have just spent about 3 minutes on one of your panoramas, what do you think? I have rushed this job but a little more time and you could perfect it.
John

[Eve]

John, that is great, I have saved it. I am still learning and maybe one day I will be able to do it too! I will have to become less impatient. What method did you use? :)

[johng]

Hello Eve,
I used paint shop pro 8 and I first employed the clone tool with quite a low opacity but with the brush wide enough to cover the whole width of sky and I moved it back and forth along the sky. Then I used the soften brush with quite a strong setting as the softening does not really show in the sky.
I have done such a lot of image editing over the years and your pic could have been made even better with a little more time.
Practice makes perfect, you just have to keep experimenting. Good luck.
John
PS If you use a program such as Pano Sticher from www.pixtra.com that will make an excellent job automatically.

[Eve]

Thanks John. I used Canon PhotoStitch to merge them. As you say practice makes perfect so I'll keep trying if I get any more suitable pics.

[Muzz]

Thanks john! I ran off and grabbed the Panosticher:)

[johng]

Hello Muzz,
In my honest opinion you now have the best stitcher on the market. Quite some time ago I tried many, in fact all I could find on the internet and this program definitely produced the best results.
I have made a few 360 degree images and they were fine. You just have to keep your camera at the same level, overlap the images and just turn on the spot.
Good Luck with it.
John

[phil]

What about the photomrege that comes with Photoshop CS Verson 8 or even Photoshop elements 2?

I think that does a great job.

[johng]

Don't forget when making panoramas that the photos must all have the same exposure, so lock it in the camera on the first shotl
John

[johng]

Eve, Here is the other
John

[Eve]

Thanks John, appreciate that.:)

[johng]

Eve, If you lock camera exposure as I mentioned earlier you will not get such a great colour saturation change and the blending will be much easier.
John

[Eve]

I saw your advice about exposure John. On my very simple Kodak LS420 I do not have that option. With the Canon PhotoStitch prog I just line up the pictures and click 'merge' and thats it. I think the vertical lines are where PS has matched them up and joined them.:)