Creating Panoramas
Creating panoramas is one of the real attractions of working with landscape and seascape images using a digital camera. Panoramic images can be created in both Photoshop and Lightroom software by merging several images into a single long this image. It’s quite a triumph when you see the final result. Sometimes though, even using a tripod to create the images, you can get lining up problems. This means that the “joined image” doesn’t look right. In fact it looks like a joined up image!. To avoid this I have adopted a different approach.
In the red centre. This panoramic image shows Kata Tjuta, 227 miles south west of Alice Springs and 16 miles east of Uluru, Australia. We went there on the “longest day trip in the world!” with Emu Tours 
To the right of the last image these are the sheds that were used to “check in” the people who went from the UK to Australia on the £10 passage trip in the 1960s 
A sailing ship passes under Sydney Harbour Bridge . Look closely and you can see people walking up the side of the bridge 
Framed by the trees in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney we see the iconic Opera House and the Coat hanger bridge behind it. 
Sure le pont de Avignon. The old bridge at Avignon stretches out into the distance 
A panoramic image of Marseilles Harbour on a bright day in October 
Blue waters and rocks on the Dingle peninsular, Eire 
An 8mm wide angle lens captures the whole of the bay at Kilkee in Eire. The ribbon of foam goes around the bay 
Row boats at Ross Castle in Kilarney, Eire 
Foaming waters, Valentia Island, Eire 
Foaming seas around the Cromwell Point Lighthouse on Valentia Island, Eire 
A panoramic image captured from the summit of Valentia Island, Eire 
Bright evening colours on the isle of Graemsay, captured from Stromness 
The Ferryboat from Mull returns towards Stromness. Graemsay on the left, the mountains of brooding Mull on the right 
The standing stones at Stenness on Mainland Orkney 
White sands in the bay at Skara Brae, Mainland Orkney 
Remote dwellings at Holm Sound in Mainland Orkney 
Peaceful moorings at Blakeney in Norfolk 
The Pier at Southwold
Image Capture
Firstly, I set the camera to capture large size images, preferably using a tripod. Clear images of wonderful views are produced, but sometimes, even with careful composition, there are areas which are less interesting than others. For example, there may be lots of water in the bottom half of the image from the sea or lake. Alternately there may be too much grass from the lawn or field in the bottom portion of the image. The top of the image may contain lots of sky. In one sense, these elements may be necessary to capture the width of the subject part of the image, but in themselves they don’t provide interest.
Creating the Panoramas In Lightroom
Once the image is in Lightroom, straightened and adjusted as necessary we can consider cropping. Cropping the image to leave just the “interesting” top, bottom or middle third of the image. This will produce a long thin horizontal strip which is, or appears to be a panoramic image. It also provides all the interest you seek or would seek from the joining together of several different images because it removes a large part of (say) blue sea to leave a wide segment of coastline. In one case a much more effective sunset was created in this way. In another image the large front area of golden harvested field.
The outcome
The outcome is that I am able to print clear images of around 24″ x 10″ (60 x 25cm). Have a look and let me know what you think.