Assembling Panoramic Photos: A Designer's Notebook

6.6. Stage 6

6.6.1. Eliminating "ghost" images

In Photoshop I looked at the pictures at 100% to see if there were blurry areas at the seams where two linked layers are masked. If there are, you can activate the appropriate layer mask that Stitcher created for the two overlapping layers and paint on it—in white or black—to erase the ghost image on the misaligned layer.

6.6.2. Adjusting densityand color balance

In Photoshop, I then created a new layer in Overlay mode with an opacity of 100% and filled it with 50% gray. (Select Edit→Fill from the Use dropdown, select 50% Gray, and selectNormal from the Mode dropdown).

Painting on this layer with black subtly increases density; painting with white increases brightness. Together, they letme blur some uneven areas in the sky and re-emphasizethe buildings.

I applied a Curves adjustment layer to remove a few red spots and add some contrast. I also toned down the brightness of the red traffic light byselecting it and using Images→Adjustments→Hue/Saturation.

6.6.3. The Debarrelizer plug-in

I first saved one version of the panorama with all its layers, then flattened them and applied the Debarrelizer plug-in to reduce the bulge that is typical with this kind of assembly. The operation clips the edge of the pictures a little, which is why I gave myself plenty of margin at both ends.

When I re-cropped the picture to match my original vision, the photograph was finally finished. The end result was a file assembled from six images that measured ...