I've been merging, lots of merging

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

I have taken a liking to the merge feature of Photoshop and find myself doing more and more of it. It is a limited version of the Brenizer method. I do it for any of a few reasons; I want a larger image with very good sharpness, perspective, I can't otherwise get the shot I want because of things in the foreground; or I'm just too lazy to change lenses. These are some recent shots merging anywhere from just two images to 12 or more.

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!Karen · Joined: 20 Jul 2013 Posts: 836 Location: Belgium Baby

Excellent images. Good compositions!

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

Thank you, Karen. I have visited your flickr - very, very nice. You should post more here.

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4744 Location: Cheshire, England

Great images, you have got the technique well. I do this all the time now, making panoramas. It can fall apart when there is not enough detail in the subject - as I'm sure you have discovered.

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

Yes, or not enough overlap. Also, any movement will make it impossible. When people are part of it, you must do them quickly top to bottom, then the rest of the area. In my window shot above from 12 images (but a lot of overlap), if you look carefully you will see a stray vine just to the right of center bottom. It was windy.

!Karen · Joined: 20 Jul 2013 Posts: 836 Location: Belgium Baby

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

You should try to capture some perspectives that wouldn't be possible without the stitching technique - this is when you really discover the power of the technique.

woodrim · Joined: 14 Jan 2010 Posts: 4060 Location: Charleston

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Yes, panoramas are often hard to make interesting, where they do work well is when there is a lot of detail throughout the frame, such as you would get with a cityscape.

The Brenzier thing is very dependent on the subject and it's placement in relation to the other elements in the frame.

One way I have found of getting a 3D effect is to combine some conservative HDR toning with the NIK sharpener plugin - it has a 'local contrast' slider, turn tat up a lot and in conjunction with the wider tonal range you get with HDR, and you can get some really 3D shots. I'll see if I can find some examples to show you.

The lens you use also has an effect, some lenses work much better than others.

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Looks normal, which I like, as the method used should not be visible.
Some nice ones in there...