Photoshop Elements 13: The Missing Manual

Chapter 11. Photomerge: Creating Panoramas, Group Shots, and More

Everyone’s had the frustrating experience of trying to photograph an awesome view—like a city skyline or a mountain range—only to find that it’s too wide to fit into one picture. Elements comes to the rescue once again: the Photomerge command lets you stitch together a group of photos you shot while panning across the horizon to create a panorama that’s much larger than any single photo your camera can take. Panoramas can become addictive once you’ve tried them, and they’re a great way to get those wide, wide shots that are beyond the capability of your camera lens.

Elements includes the same great Photomerge feature that’s part of Photoshop, which makes it incredibly easy to create super panoramas. Not only that, but Adobe also gives you a few fun twists on Photomerge that are unique to Elements: Faces, which lets you easily move features from one face to another; Group Shot, which lets you replace folks in group photos; and Scene Cleaner, for those times when your almost-perfect vacation shot is spoiled by strangers walking into the frame. There’s also a new merge in Elements 13: Photomerge Compose, which steps you through moving an object from one image to another, and then adjusts the lighting between the two images to make a more realistic blend.

Note

Elements includes one more kind of merge: Photomerge Exposure, which lets you blend differently exposed versions of the same scene (like photos taken using your camera’s ...