What are they?: A Panorama is a picture or a photograph containing
a wide view or presentation of a subject. They are one such clever techniques
that every one are aware of and are constantly used in capturing many location
such as seascape, landscape etc.. Almost
every camera including the mobile cameras nowadays offers this wonderful
technique.
Limitations: But there is one limitation with the methods provided
in the camera. They only allow you to pan your camera from left to right and
vice versa. Hence the resulting image looks so thin(in height) and stretched as
seen in Fig.1.
 |
| Fig.1* |
Here
I shall discuss a method which will help you take panoramas in any direction.
Taking panoramas is possible even if that feature is not available in your
camera. However there is one pre-request; your camera should have Manual Mode
or at least Program mode from where you can adjust your White Balance. Fret not
if you don't have both of these. You can still check for some scene modes such
as sunset, daylight etc. in your camera which fixes the white balance to a
preset value.
Tools: There are many tools available on the web to achieve
panorama from multiple images however I prefer Adobe Photoshop. It has so many
advanced features that I had never looked for an alternative.
Our Technique:
The technique that we adopt is very simple. We will take
multiple images of the scene with uniform exposure and then combine those
images using Photoshop. Here are the steps:
1)Set-up the Camera:
- Put
your camera into manual mode or to Program Mode. Refer Fig.2
 |
| Fig.2 |
- Change
the White Balance from auto to any other Preset. I always prefer Cloudy because
it gives a fine balance between warm and cooler colour. You can try with
different Presets. Refer Fig.3. If
we take photos with white balance set to auto then we may end up taking photos
with different colour tone and exposures which will spoil the Panorama.
 |
| Fig.3 |
- If
you are in Manual Mode, set your appropriate Aperture and Shutter speed. Once
set, do not change them until you take all the shots so as to have images with
uniform exposure.
If your shutter speed is slow then I suggest you to put your
camera on a tripod to avoid camera shake. Now your camera is ready to take that
super Panorama.
2)Shoot the
individual images :
Before going for the shoot just have a
plan on how your final image should look like. Just imagine them as a canvas
and split them to individual frames. Then start taking photos of these frames.
For example refer Fig.4.
 |
| Fig.4 |
Lets
assume we would like to get an image like the above, then we shall split the
canvas to 4 separate image(1,2,3&4 marked in Fig.4). Follow these steps to
take those individual Images:
- Take
a snap of the first frame. Lets call it Image-1.
- Slightly pan your camera to the right such that your previously taken Image-1 has some portions over lapping with the snap that
you will take now- i.e Image-2. This is the secret behind our panorama. If you do not have
overlapping images then Photoshop
will fail to generate your panorama.
- Similarly
pan your camera down and take Image-3
such that portions of it are overlapping
with Image-2.
- Finally
pan your camera to the left to take Image-4
overlapping with Image-3 & Image-1.
- Continue
snapping until you take all the photos in your imaginary canvas.
Here are a set of pictures that I had taken to create a
panorama shown in Fig.5.
 |
| Fig.5** |
I wanted to get a wider view of the landscape having the
Agasthiyarkoodam peak on the left and the Arabian Sea on the right. But I could
not as I did not have a camera with wide angle lens to capture the entire
scene. Hence I took 13 separate Images and converted them to the Panorama.
"Always remember all the images that
you take should be overlapping with one another".
3)Create Panorama
using Photoshop.
We are
now ready to convert our images into the actual canvas we thought of. Open your
Adobe Photoshop, go to File->Automate->PhotoMerge. From there click
browse and select all the individual images. You may leave the layout as Auto
and check Blend images. You can also try different options. Refer Fig.6
 |
| Fig.6 |
Click OK. Voila! Your
amazing panorama with great quality, uniform exposure and unbelievably smooth
image has been created. Refer Fig.7.
 |
| Fig.7** |
You can make some finishing
touches by cropping, adjusting brightness and contrast. Then save your file
into your favourite format and share. Here is the final image after cropping Fig.7 shown in Fig.8.
 |
| Fig.8 |
The same technique can be used to create Bokehroma(Photo-Merge
Multiple Bokeh Images) or the almost similar Brenizer's Method(Photo Merge
Multiple Images taken by setting wide aperture).
* A panorama of Western Ghats from the Ketty Valley view,
Ooty, The Nilgiris,TamilNadu.
** A panorama of Agasthiyarkoodam Peak,Trivandrum,Kerala.
