Blue Heron Panoroma

[ajsmith]

This is my first attempt at a panorama image. I used Photoshop Elements to merge the photos together and it did a great job. I can't see any seams. This is the same heron I posted pics for yesterday. Probably not the best pictures of a bird flying, but they are an improvement over the ones I took over the summer. The red color in the water is the foliage reflection.

I used a Canon T3 set for RAW images and it really had a problem with continuous shooting. It does a little better with JPEG. I have my eye set on the new Canon 70D and can hopefully purchase it in a few months. My longest lens is 250mm, so I am lucky the bird is friendly and lets me get quite close. Someone in my office told me the heron got in a fight with a Canada goose yesterday.

C&C always welcome.

[Wavelength]

Lovely.....

I think seeing the other shore is not of any benefit to the image; if that is removed one would get a feeling of a huge expanse of a water body.....

Regards

[Brownbear]

I think you photographed the herons very beautifully... Nice and sharp and great DOF... I also think you merged them beautifully and I hope to learn to do the same one day.

Aside... The herons look a little purple to me, and I agree with Nandakumar that cropping out the shore seems like a good idea to keep attention on the most beautiful parts of the photo.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Ali,

I'm jealous - I have never shot anything like this, I must give it a try sometime.

Very good for a first go, I'm sure you've learnt from it and next time may be better still.

Only suggestion for these would be to give some clarity (in LR), or Local Contrast Enhancement (= LCE) (in whatever else you have; e.g. Elements) to each of the birds to help them stand out a little better from the background.

HTH,

[cliffmccartney]

Lovely image.

I second Dave's advice - the herons could use some more contrast.

Nice work!

[dje]

Great work Ali. I wouldn't have thought of this technique. A couple of questions if I may - what shutter speed did you use and were you panning the camera or was it stationary?

Dave

[Nancy Moran G]

Looks pretty darn good for learning a new skill!
Just got PSE 11 the other day. Briefly, how did you do this?
Nancy

[ajsmith]

Nandakumar,

I tried your suggestion of cropping out the shoreline from the background. Photo is attached at end.

[ajsmith]

Christina,

I am attaching a remake of the photo without the shoreline and I tried to remove the bluish purple cast on the birds.

[ajsmith]

Dave and Cliff,
I am posting a remake trying to add more contrast.

[ajsmith]

Dave,

I was using Shutter Priority and had it set for 800. I wanted it higher but I couldn't get enough light. The iso was 400 and I didn't want to make it higher because of grain. The aperture was f5, would have preferred f8 or higher. I had continuous shooting and Al Servo focus tracking turned on for the Canon T3. I guess the reason the pics came out OK was that the bird was flying low and not to fast. He just skimmed over the water and landed on the other side of the pond.

When the bird started to fly I tried to move the center focus point over him and tracked him while holding down the shutter button to continuously shoot. My camera was set for RAW images and the Canon T3 didn't handle it very well. It was slower than using the JPEG setting for continuous shooting.

[ajsmith]

Nancy,
I have Photoshop Elements 10, so not sure if 11 has exactly the same steps, but here they are:
You can see my post above to Dave about how I captured the photos using continuous shooting and Al Servo focus on the Canon T3. Some cameras may have a panorama setting, mine does not. Each image must have an area of overlap so Photoshop can find where one ends and the next one starts.

1. So I took three photos from the continuous shoot and put them in a folder on my computer.
2. I opened Photoshop Elements and went to the File menu and selected New > Photomerge panorama
3. When the dialog box opened I chose Auto for Layout and then clicked Browse to locate my three photos.
4. I checked the box, Blend Images Together.
5. Clicked on OK

Then just waited for Photoshop to Merge the files. A dialog box popped up asking if I wanted to fill in the edges. I said NO. The first time I did this the dialog box was in the background and I could not see it until I minimized the Photoshop window. So if it is taking a long time to merge your pics you might want to check to see if something is waiting for you to make a choice. Check your task bar or look for windows behind Photoshop. It only took about 45 seconds to merge the three files.

Once the merge was done, I had three layers, but I couldn't do much with them, so I saved the file as a JPEG and completed my edits on that file. After the merge the edges of the image were jagged and different sizes so I had to crop my file. I skipped the step to have Photoshop fill in the edges because I had tried it and it didn't look good.

I then completed any other edits I had to do on the merged JPEG. I guess you could edit each photo first and then merge them, but I wouldn't change the size until after the merge.

Hope this helps. It's actually pretty easy once you try it. I think it is the planning that takes time. There are other types of photo merges too. Mine has six different types, not sure what they all do. I only used the Panoramic.

Good luck and I hope to see your merged photo on CIC!

[ajsmith]

Here are the revised:

Revised #1


Revised #2

[Wavelength]

For me it is better without the othershore
Regards

[Brownbear]

Well done, and beautiful!

[Nancy Moran G]

Thank you for those steps! I have 3 bird shots and will try this when I have a little experience with PSE!
Happy shooting,
Nancy

I am at Cape Cod Canal for another week, I see you are in Boston.

[ajsmith]

Nancy,

You must be getting some great photos in Cape Cod. Look forward to seeing some of them. Are you taking the ferry to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket?