Monday, April 16, 2012

EF Tutorial -- Panoramas For Everybody: How to Create Panoramic Shots Without Fancy Equipment.

Panoramic shots create dramatic photos.

Sunset in Baguio City.

This tutorial will teach you how to create your own panoramic shots without fancy cameras or expensive software.  All you really need is a camera and a way to crop pictures.  For the purposes of this tutorial, I'll use a basic (and free) program called IrfanView to show how simple the process is.


First, you want to take the widest possible shot of your subject.  In simple terms, go as far back as possible for your shot.  For example, this is a picture taken last year at the Gateway Community Church:
Click to enlarge.

Next, you want to open your picture in an editing program.  In this case, Irfanview:

Click to enlarge.

Using your mouse, draw a box around the part of the photograph that you want to turn into a panorama:

Click to enlarge.

Next, find the option to Crop the photo around the selected area. In IrfanView it's in EDIT>CROP SELECTION (CTRL+Y)

Click to enlarge.
The result should look something like this:

Click to enlarge.
Now, just save it and your final result should look like a good panoramic shot:

Click to enlarge.
Here are a few more examples:
A Vertical Panorama.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.
There you have it.  With a few clicks, you too can create your very own panoramas!

--Kris

PS I took all these photos myself back when I was well.

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