I set my camera at infinity focus for all and rarely use a tripod – the ‘jerky’ outline of the final result often adds asthetic value and ‘life’ to the final picture. I generally crop for structural panoramics (buildings, ships, etc) but leave as is from landscapes, city scenes etc

For large panoramas, shoot several rows across the scene to build up the mosaic and get the detail. Often with Landscape panoramas, its the quantity of sky that you capture that makes the final picture, or the quantity of foreground. The rules of composition still apply to the final result.

Watch your subject for movements – people, birds, waves, clouds, cars etc all have a habit of moving across the scene! Study the scene, work out where the main direction of movement is and time your shots accordingly. Take multiple shots of the same individual picture for waves and other repeating movements (swings)

I use PTGUI (www.ptgui.com) and create a layed PSD which I then use to mask out the errant waves, people etc in order to get the best ‘blend’. PYGUI is not free, but is relatively inexpensive and does a fantastic job quickly – much better than Photoshop Photomerge. I’ve used it for years and I’m always astounded at the results. The pro version will deal with HDR panoramics as well.

There are links to tutorials and to the panoToolsNG@yahoogroups.com mail group that covers all aspects of digital panoramics – from stitching to QTVR conversion to DIY pano heads etc.

If you want to print your panoramics, then the large aspect ratio is usually beyond most Photo printing services except the professionals – so I use Posterazor (free) http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/. This creates a PDF of your large impage which I then print on a good colour laser printer and glue together.

There is an elegant symmetry in this – take individual photos, stitch to create the large, Posterazor to create individual pages, glue to create the large! The creative juices keep flowing

I’ve got a 300cm x 60cm picture of Callanaish stones (Outer Hebrides, Scotland) adorning my lounge via this method, using 14 x 2 A4 portrait prints.

The important thing to do is, set up your tripod, find a focal point, set your focus on that (perhaps a person) and then turn off auto-focus. Then when you shoot your pictures the focus will be consistent across all of them.

What is the best thing to focus on while shooting. I want to make sure i have a even focus from picture to picture before i stitch them together!

Thanks so much! I look forward to trying some of these in the future and posting my results!

@Art Always rotate your camera on its axis via the tripodhead. Do not move the tripod as that will shift the perspective. Depending on the focal length used this could have a substantially negative impact to your panoramic.

@Mark B. Unfortunately the Photomerge function is in the CS versions only. I should have clarified. There really is no automated alternative in Photoshop 7. That being said it is possible to do what Photomerge does manually it just takes additional time. Not that I’m selling anything Adobe, but the CS upgrades are worth it.