Help with a wide outback or rainforrest photo
Submitted: Friday, Jul 06, 2012 at 15:19
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PJR (NSW)
I am after a very wide high resolution photo of the Australian bush for a kitchen splash back. A panoramic style would be best. The boss wants a rainforrest scene with heaps of green to go with the slate floor. Me? I want a typical wide photo of the red outback. I will change the slate if needed. Either way the photo has rto be high resolution and a big file size. The bigger the better. The ciurrent design has the splashback length at 4.5 meters. We so much love the bush and would like a bit in the kitchen.
From the splashback mob:
quote "The art guy said the images need to be at least 15mb to make the picture ok when enlarged etc. And higher is better" unquote
Can anyone help?
She does not know I put this up either. So those that know us - HUSH IT.
Reply By: Member - Cruiser74 - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 10:56
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 10:56
Hi mate,
You said you have a 550D so if you have a tripod and a basic knowledge of photoshop you can easily do this yourself. I think it's a great idea for a splashback but how much prouder of your kitchen would you be if you took the image yourself! There are a couple of things to consider with a panorama especially when it comes to printing. I'm not sure if you are wanting the image to cover the whole splashback but at 4.5m you are going to need a file size much larger than 15MB.
Another thing to consider is the distance with which your splashback will be viewed. Is it something you want to admire while you are cooking up a steak or is it more something to add to the overall aesthetic of the kitchen itself? It's important not to confuse PPI and DPI. PPI is the resolution of the image itself and DPI (or Dots Per Inch) is used for the printing resolution. If you consider a large billboard on a highway it is generally printed at aroud 30 DPI as it is being viewed from a long distance but if you were to walk right up to it and view it from a couple of feet away all you would see are big blocky pixels. So as a general rule the further away the image is being viewed from the lower the DPI used. This setting can be changed before printing from an image of any resolution but as a starting point the higher the better IMO.
OK getting back to doing it yourself. All pro's that print their own large panorama's will almost exclusively do so by using more than 1 image. That is, when they shoot the scene they will take anywhere between 4 and 20+ photo's of the same scene and overlap each shot by 10-20% depending on how large a file they want. They will then stitch the files in Photoshop, PTGui or some other such stitching software to create a seamless high quality, high resolution panorama. There is some very basic info here on how to do it.
http://dslrblog.com/how-to-shoot-a-panorama-with-a-dslr/
It's better to shoot your pano in portrait mode and include areas you do not want in the finished scene and overlap rather than landscape mode as there is more room to crop out unwanted areas of the scene once the image is stitched. Once you have shot and stitched the image you will have a great high quality/high resoltion image to play with. Give the file to a lab and tell them what you want and let them do all the hard work with regards to resolution/ppi/dpi etc but at least you will know you have given them enough to work with and it will be something of your own! Good luck!
Craig
AnswerID:
490313
Follow Up By: PJR (NSW) - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:46
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:46
Craig
A wealth of info there. I had an inkling the we should go there but you laid it out nicely. Yes we have a tripod. I was thinking of that at around 2AM.
I played with making up a panorama once as a lad with an old camera but too too many "big" and landscape photos but that was years ago when surfing. As expected it was failed. You have given us hope.
We need a few
Barrington Tops or Yilba Tilba drives.
We are off to the Simpson soon and will have a heap of opportunities to get desert photos. Isn't it a shame we didn't have the 550 when up on the Cape and visiting the
Daintree. Just imagine a reproduction of Fruitbat Falls on the wall. Maybe a dtrip back is needed. There are
places that are closer. We have time on our side as
well.
Thanks mate
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Follow Up By: PJR (NSW) - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 15:13
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 15:13
Well Craig. What do you think of my very first merging four into one?
Final details are:
Width 11130
Height 2820
Resolution 200 DPI
File: 19.8Mb
Just from the front verandah at the hills across the valley.
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Follow Up By: Member - Cruiser74 - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 15:24
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 15:24
Hi, not a bad first effort and you get the idea. You live in a pretty enviable spot there! I can see a fair bit of ghosting in this shot which tells me that you either haven't overlapped your individual shots enough, your tripod was moved or bumped between shots or your camera/tripod set-up was not kept level between shots. It would also be interesting to know what software you are using to stitch your shots together. Don't be frightened to overlap your shots by up to 50% if needed and take double the amount of shots. This makes it easier for the software to stitch the respective images. Without going into too much detail here there is a wealth of
information online that can help you out and it can get quite detailed with info about nodal points and such. Start off with the simple stuff and you will be creating some great stitches in no time!
Craig
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Follow Up By: PJR (NSW) - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 22:50
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 22:50
Craig
The softweare if Arcsoft Photo Studio 2000. It came with some package I purchased just a few (10) years ago. Up until now it has suited our purposes. The stitching is done by identifying a pixel, or area if it is not critical, in each photo, selecting the blend width and let it do the rest. It doen't have many smarts. It does have an excellent rotating and red eye reduction facility. That is about all we used it for. I ended up using 10%. 100% gave big bunches of ghosts and 0% showed an obvious line where they were "just cut and glued".
The latest effort (see below) was taken from the
hill at the rear of the house, just above our roof line, looking west over the southern suburbs of
Canberra towards the Brindabellas. The far right hand section was deleted by photobucket. The file is now 17104 x 3040 pixels and 30Mb in size. That was the view from our front verandah before all the "domestic" trees grew up. We have about 80% of it now. I did not take the correct tripod so the photos were taken in landscape. But I get the idea and with portrait photos and a better software package it will work. We can take our own. But before I go patting myself on the back I need to get the splashback guru to look at the original source and resultant panorama photos. They would no doubt do a better job. I think this also need the professional touch.
The splices are evident when looked at from a distance so that needs work.
Thanks again.
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Follow Up By: Member - Cruiser74 - Sunday, Jul 08, 2012 at 09:52
Sunday, Jul 08, 2012 at 09:52
Hey that's much better! I would definitely advise getting rid of that ancient software you are using though! There have been ALOT of developments in the last 10 years that make this process more seamless and intuitive. I'm not sure if you are aware but you can download a fully functional trial version of Photoshop (CS6 version has just been released) to use for 30 days. I have included a link to the download and also a link to a short video tutorial on how to use the Photomerge functionality within the software. It is really very easy. The rest of Photoshop is a whole other animal! I have been using it for over 5 years and have barely scratched the surface of its power but for what I need it for (editing landscape images) it is amazing. Best of Luck!
Photoshop CS6Photomerge tutorial
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Follow Up By: PJR (NSW) - Sunday, Jul 08, 2012 at 13:48
Sunday, Jul 08, 2012 at 13:48
Diownloading photoshop now. Lets see what the fuss is about. Just koking. The demonstration was excellent.
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Reply By: Gone Bush (WA) - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:27
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:27
Just for interest's sake, both cameras I use take panoramas automatically. A Sony A55 DSLR and a Sony HX9V.
If you have a look through my blog
GB in a BT
Particularly July to September 2011 you may see some you like. If you do, send me a MM and I will email them to you.
The pictures on the blog have been reduced but the originals are fairly high megapixels. I have had a canvas print made from one that was 1500mm long so they may work for you too.
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: Gone Bush (WA) - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:29
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:29
I see you won't be able to send an MM. Leave a comment on the appropriate page on my blog with your email address if you want any photos. If you do that, I will remove your email address from the blog afterwards for your privacy.
Cheers
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Follow Up By: PJR (NSW) - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:49
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 13:49
Will do mate.
We just got
home from visiting kitchen designers. It looks like the extra window that I want in the back wall will decrease the width down to something more manageable at around the 3 meters. So its back to the drawing board for the size of the splashback.
I need some lunch and a cuppa to read the stuff you pointed me at.
Thanks Bushie
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Follow Up By: Member - Cruiser74 - Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 14:08
Saturday, Jul 07, 2012 at 14:08
No problem mate! I'm no expert but I have shot quite a few pano's and printed them myself with some pretty good results. If you need any advice drop me a line and I'll do my best to help. Cheers
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