Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual

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

Everyone's had the experience of trying to photograph an awesome view—a city skyline or a mountain range, for instance—only to find the whole scene won't fit into one picture because it's just too wide. Elements, once again, comes to the rescue. With Elements' Photomerge command, you can stitch together a group of photos that you've taken while panning across the horizon. You end up with 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.

If you've used Elements before, you may know that in the past you had to do a bunch of tweaking to get a smooth-looking result, but Photomerge got a huge makeover for Elements 6. If you know anyone who's used Photoshop CS3, the latest version of the full Photoshop, you may have heard how terrific its new Photomerge feature is. Now you can try it out for yourself, because Adobe put the same Photomerge (minus a couple of settings) into Elements 6. You won't believe how easy it is now.

Not only that, but Adobe gives you a couple of fun new twists on Photomerge that are unique to Elements: Faces and Group Shot, which let you easily move features from one face to another, and replace folks in a group photo.

If you're into photographing buildings (especially tall ones), you know that you often need some kind ...