A different kind of Panorama

[lsteigerwalt]

Good afternoon,

I have searched and searched and either I'm not using the correct string or the info just is not there. I have CS6 and want to take multiple images of a field from 100 feet above...perhaps using ground station and putting a grid on the field and flying the mission setting the camera to take a pic every 3 seconds. Then I want to make a composite? or panorama of the entire field using the 20-30 images. My hope is that this will allow me to have the ability to zoom in to any section(picture) for more detail....so basically I want to be able to see the entire field but be able to see more detail once I zoom in using the method above...can anyone help me? Thanks in advance.

 

[traeger23]

It's in Photoshop, under the File... menu:

File... Automate... Photomerge

You can either manually open all of the tile images into Photoshop ahead of time, or point it at a folder with all of your images in it. Not sure about CS6, but Photoshop CC 2014 has the option of browsing for specific files without opening them first.

It will use anything in the folder you select, and attempt to align and adjust it to create a large, merged image, so be sure to edit the total source images down to only what you need to create the final image. You need a bit of overlap between the tiles so it can align stuff.

It's a pretty powerful utility, and depending on the size and number of your source images, it can take a little while. The cool part is that it will automatically correct any lens distortion in the source images, up to a point, anyway. Depending on the amount of detail in the sources, it can sometimes create some interesting mutations, too, but it's really a matter of trial and error.

If you find you're getting a lot of weirdness from just using Photomerge, you can pre-process the images to correct for lens distortion separately before trying to merge them. Just look in the Filter... Lens Correction menu, and you can dial in the make and model of the camera you used to remove any disortion in the source image, and make any tweaks before hitting OK.

Just be aware that you need to save all of your images to disk before Photomerge will be able to use them.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Cary

 

[lsteigerwalt]

Thanks...I will give it a go...now if I can just find a way to pre plan the mission without having to do it in the field that would be even better

 

[tracsoft]

Usually with Photomerge in PhotoShop it depends on the photos being taken from the same position. I shoot DSLR normally and am just getting into quadcopters but I think you are going to have a problem them to line up properly.