Assembling Panoramic Photos: A Designer's Notebook

6.5. Stage 5

6.5.1. Rendering the picture

I created this first render in Stitcher at 100% of the screen height (760 pixels) in Photoshop format, using the Cylindrical projection. I tried the Spherical projection (see below) but it made the central building look too squat.

With the Cylindrical projection, the building was stretched vertically a bit, but I thought it looked more elegant. I could have gotten nice straight perspective lines if I had taken the photos with a perspective correction lens, but Stitcher can't assemble that kind of picture.

After going to Render→Set Render Area, I selected the render area and its size in pixels.

Because Stitcher couldn't equalize the images as they were, I had to open and modify them in Photoshop. But I first saved this version of my project.

With all the source images open in Photoshop, I selected the sky with the Magic Wand tool and modified its edges on an adjustment layer set in Luminosity mode so the color balance wouldn't be too uneven. I darkened the sky in the center images a bit and lightened it in others. I saved these images with their adjustment layers intact in another folder. The images were then flattened and again saved in the source folder.

Back in Stitcher, the program integrated these modified images back into the project. Once that was done, I equalized thecolors (Menu→Toolbar→Equalize) for a smoother rendering.

The sky is obviously very uneven, and you can see the seams between photos.