Thursday, June 15, 2006

New Stitching Program

After the trip to the Smokys, I had a camera full of sweeping panorama shots and no real place to go with them. I'm an avid Photoshop Elements user on my Mac, but I've found the panorama software in the program a bit lacking -- while I like that it accepts large format files, the blending of the output always throws light values out of whack. You end up with a bunch of oddly blended shadows that don't exist in your original photos.

So to combat this, I invested in some new panorama stitching software called Calico. It's a dumbed down version of PTMac, which can be used to create those awesome Quicktime panoramas that you can scroll around in, like the 3d tours of famous landmarks.

Here's my first result, and I have to say, I'm really happy with it:

in the hall of the mountain king

Another, wider example is this grab from the highest elevation of The Smokys:

The View From Clingman's Dome

The way the decaying trees, eaten away by insects, I think, dotting the landscape really makes this an interesting shot.

Long story short, I think this is a process I'd like to try and repeat around DC, or anywhere reasonable, really. Any landmarks you'd like to special request? I'll do a wide panorama for you, stitch it together, and even offer it for a reasonable price (unless you have a birthday coming up, then maybe I can do it for free).

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i'd appreciate a panoramic view of vatican city. ive tried it a few times. it just doesnt work out.

p.s. i keed i keed.

10:01 AM  

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